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-^llllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllliliilllillllilllllllllMIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIM'MNII.II imiiiiM. 

I Have Faith in | 

I Calvin Coolidge | 

1 or I 

I From a Farm House to | 
i the White House I 




By 
THOMAS T. JOHNSTON 



^lllllllllllllllllillllillllllllllllllllllllllilllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllMlllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllillllllllllllllln 



CONTENTS 



Page 

1 Foreword— Where, When, and Why 3 

2 Calvin Coolidge — An Appreciation 6 

3 Like the Granite of His Native Vermont 9 

4 The People's Cry 12 

5 Calvin Coolidg-e — His Sterling- Qualities 15 

6 A Massachusetts and A Civilization Victory 18 

7 Calvin Coolidge and the Presidency 21 

8 Calvin Coolidge— His Fiber of Mind and Heart 24 

9 Calvin Coolidge Welcomed Home 27 

10 The Birthday of Our Government • 

and of Our Governor 29 

11 Calvin Coolidge— President of the United States — 39 



Articles i, 3, 4, 7, 9, 10, 11 Copyright 1923 

By Thomas T. Johnston 

AH Rielits Reserved. 



Woolverton Printing Company 
Cedar Falls, Iowa 



DEC 28 im 

IC1A773054 



I 



ARTICLE I. 
FOREWORD—WHERE, WHEN AND WHY 

A whole literature is destined to sprin^j up concerning Calvin 
Coolid.q'e, as has already been the case with Washington, Lincoln, 
Roosevelt and others. This is a certainty. O'f this literature these 
pages are but a humble fore-runner, born as they have been of a 
fervent enthusiasm, a desire, a prayer — a prayer, which today is in 
I)art fulfilled. For seven years we have seen Calvin Coolidge trudg- 
ing the path that leads to the White House. He has been sure- 
footed, not in haste, working with conscientious precision and devo- 
tion. To do the day's work has been hisi creed], which is orthodox 
for efficiency. Destiny, or God., or both, have been taking him to 
the top f)f the world; now he has arrived, and we find contentment in 
it. But it has been the order of things. Without financial prestige, 
without the control of any great newspaper, without patronage or 
promise, without the accustomed style of oratorical power or a com- 
pelling*, magnetic personality, without resort to the camouflage that 
plays on the popular imagination, this sdlent, unassuming conscienti- 
ous, mysterious, clear-seeing and clear-thinking man hasi gone from 
a little country home of his boy-hood in the Vermont hills, the road 
of duty and of work, and that road has led him by some strange 
providence, to the greatest political position on earth. We are not 
afraid of the outcome. He is there for a purpose. 

Already some of the politicians are out gunning for him. Mr. 
Coolidge has stepped into the coveted place of honor and power. 
Jealousy and ambition are active. But Mr. Coolidge can be counted 
upon to read these designs. He has been in politics long enough not 
to be caught in the trap of easy credulity. He is one of the sharpest 
and shrewdest of politicians, and one of the cleanest. He will not 
fall or fail. He. will so commend himself to all America as a clear- 
minded and true-hearted citizen, great but unassA-iming-,, that his elec- 
tion for the four-year term will be by a tidal wave. America will 
talk for him in majorities, every vote being a testimonial of admira- 
tion, confidence and faith. All America, will be saying "We have 
faith in Calvin Coolidge." His poise, his silence, his compact speech, 
liis undramatic labor, his candour and courage in a critical crisis, 
his analysis and comprehensive grasp of the truth, hia intellect, and 
in particular his conception of the spiritual origin and purpose of 
government will win for him the enthusiasms both of faith and af- 
fection. 

As a speaker and writer Calvin Coolidge is unique. The power 
of his thought, the terse sentences, the chaste diction, the epigrama- 
tid style, the cold intellectual presentation of political truth with a 
spiritual emphasis make us lose ourselves in wonderment as to the 
man and as to whether or no he will be belated in the full appre- 
ciation of his contemporaries. He deals exclusively with essentials, 
the bones and framework of truth, ever with) the philosophic touch 
and with not a spare word. His; book "Have Faith in Massachusetts" 
is evidence of our justified interest in his power. Chapters could be 
written upon his power of speech, as well as upon his power of si- 
lence. When, he has something to say, he says it, and quits. There 
is no frotli, no foam,, no raving, no roaring", no beating the air and 
howling, — all is compact thought, clothed in chas:te and direct Eng- 
lish. Anything he puts into print is a classic. We earnestly hope 
tliat, besides his national and world activities in the political field, 

—3— 



this man of Emersonian power, will make of himself a man of letters. 
As such he would stand with the immortals. People do not always 
have a passicn to read what others have a passion to write. But the 
best minds of the world would be avaricious to devour what the 
mind and soul of Calvin Coolidge would put upon the page. 

But, with regard to all outward events, there seems to be a de- 
termining principle beyond our power to fully discern. Where our 
vision cannot go, mystery begins, and yet a mystery it is in which 
we have strange reliance. There is a power that guides human life 
beyond its ability to see. An unseen hand is at the helm. There 
is a mystery in the lead and. destiny of certain lives, so strange to us, 
and yet so evident,, that everything moral and religious about us is 
led to call that power God. Without the Divine such lives are in- 
explicable* A'nd such seems to be the life of Calvin Coolidge. 

As for the material in these pages, the article "Calvin Coolidge— 
Anl Appreciation" appeared in the .Easthampton News, Easthampton, 
Mass., on October i6, 1919. The article "Calvin Coolidge — His Ster- 
ling! Qualities" appeared in the early spring of 1920 in both a Mas- 
sach'usetts and a North Dakota paper. "A Massachusetts and a Civ- 
ilization Victory'' was sent to the Tower City Topics of North Dako- 
ta in the early Spring of 1920, and appeared in the issue of June 17, 
1920, the nomination of Mr. Coolidge for' the Vice Presidency which 
had just taken place, perhaps being considered a justification for the 
appearance of the article. The article "Calvin Coolidge— His Fiber 
of Mind audi Heart'" were also sent to North Dakota papers in early 
1920, but did not appear till later, in the Rollette County Herald of 
JXily 22, 1920, and the Turtle Mountain Star, the date of which can- 
not be recalled. The chapter "The Birthday of Our Government and 
of Our Governor" was preached as a sermon in the Wesley Methodist 
and the Cushman Church at Amherst, Mass., on Sunday, July 4th, 
1920. One thing is certain, our fireworks on that Fourth of July were 
genuine and they were earnestly patriotic and religious. The last 
chapter "Calvin Coolidge, President of the United States" was 
preached as a sermon in the Methodist Church of Holliston, Mass., 
on Sundiay, September 2, 1923. It also appeared in the Easthampton 
News August 31, 1923, Easthampton, Mass., a paper that has always 
been energetic in its support of Calvin Coolidge. The remaining 
articles of the book, except the one on "Calvin Coolidge Welcomed 
Home," which was written June 16, 1920I, were written in the late 
1919 or the first months o.f 192a. It was felt that the nature of the 
articles here included would call for this explanantion as to the 
time they were writen. Faith in and sober enthusiasm for the man, 
around whom they are written, must answer for the somewhat par- 
donable bravery in presenting them. 

It is too bad that it was the Nation's trembling hand of sorrow 
that led Mr. Coolidge into the place of responsibility and power. 
Love and admiration for Mr. Harding had grown with such rapidity 
and intensity that his untimely death,, actually giving his life for his 
country, caused universal grief. The world was stunned. Mr. Hard- 
ing was truly a good and an earnest man. He had heart-throb. His 
name will grow and glow in luster through the yearsi. The memory 
of Warren G. Harding will ever be a benediction upon America. 
His spirit and his work will go on. They cannot die. As for Calvin 
Coolidge, he is our President. No longer in the conscientious quiet 
of official subordination he is taking charge of affairs with charac- 
teristic energy, self-initiative and ability. He has entered upon a 
difficult task. May God sustain him, and may our loyal citizenship 

—4— 



earnestly support him. God save and prosper America — prosper her 
not only along- material lines but in the deeper and better things of 
the mind and heart. 

Calvin Coolidge, we give you our loyalty, our love, our prayers 
and our good wishes. We believe absolutely in your ability and in 
your Christian devotion. We are grateful to God that when our 
beloved President, Warren G. Harding, was called, you were the one 
to step into place. We know you will srtand firmly on the right 
side of every moral issue, and that your administration will be for 
the advancement of America, for the blessing of mankind, and for 
the glory of the Kingdom of God on earth. 



-5— 



ARTICLE II. 
CALVIN COOLIDGE— AN APPRECIATION 



His Name is on the L*ips of Men. A New Figure is Bulging Beyond 
the Borders of Commonwealth. 

(October i6, 1919) 



He is irresistible. He compels. He asks nothing, except by 
merit and studiousness. There is mystery enough tO' him to both 
charm and bewilder. The first impression is that he is different. 
And it is the last impression. He is vasitly more like himself than 
anybody else. Apart from all that is partisan, we like that man — 
Calvin Coplidge. The State House had settled to uncanny Quietude. 
His^ voice was not lifted much. He was waiting to have something 
to say. But he has spoken once or twice, with quiet brevity, but 
with power. When he is through speaking a voice has been heard, 
and there is nothing to do but obey. He works to intensity';, but 
there is no rattle of machinery. Things he is saying andi doing, as 
Governor of our Commonwealth, are superb enough to be thrilling. 
He is winning his way by skill and heart, lending to his significant 
office the dignity and; sturdiness of courage. 

He is not cheap, nor to be sold for a price, not hurt by success 
nor made dizzy by plaudits. Careful to arrive at conclusions, he is 
brave to stand by them. His silence is intense!, to the! degree that it 
is spooky, he seems icy to the measure that distance is comfortable, 
yet he is) the model of courtesy, he is as firm as the rock in the walls 
of the Capitol, but inot proud, he measures his step, and, in things 
intellectual, strides like a warrior. He does not yearn for trouble, 
but if if conies, fro.nts it like a Spartan. And srtays by it, through 
thick and) thin, till every untoward element has silunk to the woods, 
spanked and abashed. He has enemies and bitter ones. They are to 
his credit. His silence is so deep it can be fairly heard and felt, but 
it is the life-throb of mind and personality. Even his voice is thin 
and with a peculiar rasp, but his sparse wordsi are loaded to lumber- 
ing weight with proverb. When he lifts his pen or voice, many are 
there to read and listen, for they well know his thought has gone 
forth, and has arrived. His proclamations have been state papers 
well fitted to grace the Nation. They are piquant and superb, and 
their diction is chaste and sturdy. There is a keen edge whetted to 
hig shrewdness. 

But the cleverness of Calvin Coolidge is made safe by conviction. 
With all his legal clearness, is true motive. He is alert and' tre- 
mendously alive. His mind is not sick-abed. He sees with clarity 
inta the dark of a problem, and through that dark to the light. He 
stands clean. He is the siort that men think and talk about, and 
wonder why they talk, surprised at their own surprise at him. As to 
his success you ask why, and yet you are completely satisfied with it. 
He is from the humble walks of life, and has an earnestness, chizeled 
on his very face, — an earnestness that is cut like rock. He is the 
product of the people, but that is not against him. That he is one 
of us, gives us big contentment. We point to him, with no apology. 

—6— 



He is his own argument, to which there is no reply. There is' to the 
man no passion gone wild, or unbridled impulse. Nor one hint of 
impetuosity, — all is sort of a Stoic strength, — within his own per- 
sonality is the stabilizing control of all he does and says. 

He is sort of a political miracle. Considering the sitereotyped 
politician, who excites the masses, Calvin Coolidge is not of their 
breed or number. He spoke a City to order and maintained the dig- 
nity and sovereignty of our Commonwealth, because he is first and es- 
sentially the ruler of himself. He holds regal authority over the 
empire of his own life. The Big Book says "He that ruleth his own 
spirit is greater than t*ie«*Uhat taketh a cit^^:." The secret about 
Calvin Coolidge is that his own life is well ordered. He sits in com- 
mand of himself. He is the embodiment of law. He makes mis- 
takes of course, and admits it. All make mistakes. But if he makes 
a mistake, it seems as sincere as i.f he had been correct, yet it is not 
self-condoned because of that. He has the unique genius of making 
himself busy to make even his mistakes useful. He uses them with 
diligence to increase his skill ahead. It is no desecration of the 
finest traditions of our history to see in him a solemness, half Lin- 
coln-like, not guessed at, but evident. 

It is no high virtue to appreciate good men, only after they are 
long dead. Calvin Coolidge is a man you look at,, wonder about, 
feel an irrepressible admiration for. When he has retired, you know 
a personality has been present, and is gone. He is full-orbed in 
Americanism. He tears tigers away that are at the throat of the 
Government. He is excellent for legalism. To edge near the man 
and study him makes one feel the greatness of meekness, when meek- 
ness is armed with truth and might. There is no mere accident in 
the trend that Calvin Coolidige is becoming the quiet hero of those 
who think. In public office he is unique. He is a discovery. He 
wins by merit. His genius is hard work. 

I do not know him personally, but have seen him, heard him, and 
have studied him from every source I could, and to. me there is no 
more interesting personality, stepping forth in our public affairs to- 
day. I am weary of the glory-hungry politicians, who tickle ears, 
and hoodwink the unthinking. I am exceedingly laggard as to en- 
thusiasm over public men. My zeal for the worth, of the Massa- 
chusetts Governor is not newly born, it is full-sized. It has suffered 
and endured the growing-pains of doubt and wonderment. But Cal- 
vin Coolidge by the lead of the road, is a figure going somewhere, 
and somewhere in particular. He is sure-footed. He is well discip- 
lined to up-hill trudging. He is purposeful. He will arrive. He 
cares nothing for plaudits, but captures confidence. He commands 
the solid enthusiasms of respect. He holds his head. There are 
thousands in whose consciousness is dawning the conviction that 
here!,i in our day, is a man, sizable for worth, wishing with quiet 
power only to do. his diutv, and to do it well. He is the living em- 
bodiment of an ideal. He is a personality to be employed for our 
public good. 

Earnest Americans — leaders of the Kation and purposeful citi- 
zens — clear to the Pacific, might do well to look toward Massachu- 
setts; for such a man, such an American is an inspiration. Local 
issues are sometimes civilization-wide. Those, pledged by heart to 
the interests of civilization, instinctively look to the man of quality 
to help bear the burdens of civilization, and to tug at its problem. 
Now-a-days we call for the man, clamor for him, and demand him. 



who feels the huge sacredness of being alive and of doing his duty. 
In the day of our world-anguish, unrest, and conflicting voices, we 
will trust much to the man of that sort.'^'He that would be greatest 
among you, let him be the servant of all." 

Calvin Coolidge is showing the largeness of persistent servant- 
hood. He bends his back and mind and heart to lift the public load. 
Men look today to the man, who will not lazy about and flaunt the 
glon,^ of his position, but who will slave at his task, who is purpose- 
ful, who thinks tlirough and then speaks and who, when he speaks has 
something to say, who abides by convictions, unyielding and unafraid. 
And these are, I take it, exactly thd reasons that the name, Calvin 
Coolidge, is on the lips of men, far and near. In Calvin Coolidge, 
a new figure is on the nation's landscape. His success isi not an 
aiccidient.1 It is heart-motive and a life-program. Nor is it through. 
In a certain inexplicable way, he seems the answer to some large 
necessity. Already he is bulging beyond the borders of our Com- 
monwealth. 



ARTICLE III. 
LIKE THE GRANITE OF HIS NATIVE VERMONT 

(December, 1919) 



President-sized in mind, lowly in spirit, Calvin Coolidge is the 
aristocrat in capacity and the democrat in bearing. He has intel- 
lectual power and intensity. It is better to read the man him&elf 
than to peruse mere descriptions of himL If you read "Have Faith 
in Massachusetts" you will find it condensed political wisdom. As 
an example of his truth, compact, I give the following: 

When, without a dissenting vote, he was re-elected President of 
the State Senate, he made the following speech: 

"Honorable Senators: My siincerest thanks I offer you. Con- 
serve the firm foundations of our institutions. Do your work with 
the spirit of a soldier in the public service. Be loyal to the Com- 
monwealth and to yourselves. And be brief, above all things, be 
brief." 

Addressing the Senate on January 4, 1914, the then newly elected 
President, among other things, gave the following advice to his fel- 
low members: 

"Do the day's work. If it be to protect the rights of the weak, 
whoever objects, do it. If it be to help a powerful corporation bet- 
ter to serve the people, whatever the opposition, do that. Expect to 
be called a standpatter. But don't be a standpatter. Expect to he 
called a demagogue. But don't be a demagogue. Don't hesitate to 
be as reactionary as the multiplication table. Don"t expect to build 
up the weak by pulling down the strong. Don't hurry. to legislate. 
Give administration, a chance to catch up with legislation./' 

It is the functioning of such a mind which has brought Mr. 
Coolidge such merited distinction and which together with his vig- 
orous assertion of authority and rapid decisiveness, has revealed him 
as a man of both thought and action. Right at home in Northamp- 
ton, under the full flash of the sharpest scrutiny, Calvin Coolidge is 
honored, trusted, counted reliable — his word is as good as gold. The 
owner of no local industry*, with no backing but intellect and char- 
acter and the support they win, he has made his home town, North- 
ampton, and his college town, Amhersit, as well as the State of Mas- 
sachusetts; to sparkle with what he himself isi. It is law, as embodied 
in Calvin Coolidge which has stood like granite — the granite of his 
native Vermont — for the dignity and perpetuity of the Common- 
wealth. Calvin Coolidge is only half way up his ladder, but the 
greatest thing now is the issue. There is with him no petting of 
malicious forces to get their support or to prevent their opposition; 
there is no seeking to manipulate men as his tools for breeding 
trouble for any of his political rivals; there are no unscrupulous 
methods or maneuvers of the trixter; therei is no falseness or camo- 
flage of political advertisement; there are no over-zealous efforts) to 
bluff or brow-beat the voten, rather there is that quiet dignity that 
attracts and wins. There are no hasty or half-poised utterances or 
expressions of rage, no brazen insults hurled at opponents or upon 
the intelligence of the constituency, there are no refusalsi to stand 
for the right; there is no vicious desire of not letting truth stand in 



his way and of kicking it aside for the on-rush of his purposes and 
ambitions. No, Calvin Coolidge is cool, clear-headed, calm and hon- 
est-hearted, and has the dignity, integrity andi honour which fit him 
for the most important offices of public trust. 

He is fitted and schooled for big things, for he has been think- 
ing in the bigi, living in the big, and doing the big for years. He 
has been climbing the ladder of life, rung by rung, with patient and 
steady step, and every rung has, been not mere personal victory, but 
every rung has been the true, faithful, earnest, quiet doing of duty, 
until he was asked to toil at some* higher duty. With a man of his 
solid sort and' distinctive qualit3% it would be hard to believe that 
he is at the top of his ladder, for beingt in the, very prime of his 
manhood, even the honored opportunity and the weighty responsi- 
bility of the Governorship of historic and classic Massachusetts 
would gieem not the last call of duty. The still larger employment 
of such ability, the pressure of such honesty, and the application of 
such courage as he possesses, would seem the very desire and neces- 
sity of America in its highest office. 

INSPIRES THE ENTHUSIASMS OF RESPECT 

Calvin Coolidge is specific. He does not speak in generalities. 
He is no violator of the most fastidious etiquette but his etiquette is 
not merely methodic, it is the spontaneous promptings of the inner 
sincerity of the moment. And that is true culture. He is no 
traitor to decency. His is an unselfish seriousness. He has the power 
of poise. Through him we have seen a superb statesmanship in great 
historic Massachusetts, — a state that is the mother of statesmen. 
While others are out tooting their whistles, blowing their trumpets, 
beating their drums, slopping over in an effort to attract and de- 
ceive the shallow-minded, we can well know that unless Calvin Cool- 
idge has some public duty that calls him into the open, he is hid 
away in his silences/ of enterprise, thinking, working, diligently em- 
ployed in earnest and constructive statesmanship. He does not be- 
tray his country or those who believe in him by any Judas kiss, or 
any mere political handshake. He is not out scooping in votes, he is 
hard at work, thereby winning popular confidences), meriting all he 
gets, and is sincere gentleman enough, of course, to appreciate all 
he gets which he feels he merits. He believes tremendously in him- 
self, as any honest man should. He has faith in Calvin Coolidge, 
even asi Calvin Coolidge has "faith in Massachusetts" and in the 
United States of America. He has a goodi, true, full-sized self-respect. 
He is not bothered with conceit. A humbler manj, a more serious 
servant of the people, a more faithful andi arduous/ toiler, a clearer 
discerner of the nation's life and needs, has not been in our land, 
since Lincoln. And if Calvin Coolidge shouldi ever be elected Presi- 
dent, no man shall have sat in the presidential chair, since the days 
of the immortal Emancipator who, to a larger measure, would re- 
ceive and merit, not o.nly the confidence and admiration, but more 
than that, the true affection of the American people. He is that 
type — the sort that wins the solid enthusiasms' of affection. 

HIS UNDRAMATIC TOILING 

The quiet and undramatic toiling of some men is apt to be over- 
looked. As for Calvin Coolidge, he is so unpretensious and so apart 
from presumption that he is prone to keep his true greatness hid 
away and lonely. But we may know that he is at work. He is the 



sort which captures admiration, fires the imagination and wins the 
solid enthusiasms of belief. He has integrity audi ability. He is quite 
the pride of the East, and it would not surprise if thousands would 
count him the biggest man in the country today for the biggest 
and hardest job in the world — namely the Presidency of the United 
States. His state papers are Lincoln-strong for quality. He is a 
master-thinker, a modest gentleman, and a statesman of highest 
order. He isi America's opportunity. 

One comforting beauty of it all is he is quietly and strictly tend- 
ing to his duties as Governor of Massachusetts! and is not out work- 
ing for himself for higher honors. He is humble, faithful, earnest, 
andi of the Lincoln type. He is a real statesman, not a self advertis- 
ing politician. His speeches and state papers are masterpieces of 
superb diction and sturdy thought; Nothing anywhere in legal liter- 
ature excells them. Those who know him at all, through the medium 
of close observation are passionately ambitious that he become better 
known, well known, and appreciatively known throughout the entire 
country. As he himself will not speak, and announce what he is, 
others are impelled and persuaded to speak of him and for him. 

HE IS THE TYPE THE PEOPLE WANT 

The people are eager for a man in the presidency, who is in 
spirit and fact one of them. And as they have sacrificed and suf- 
fered and labored in thought and heart these last few years they 
want for their chiefest of servants that one of humble mein and 
rugged righteousness who, in the name of law, of justice, of America, 
and of God, will get under their common load, help bear their bur- 
deri, think and feel for and with them — a man of idealism, legalism, 
siincerity and power. Rare as such a combination is, Calvin Coolidge 
is just such a man. No man since Lincoln ever by nature and train- 
ing so qualified himself for the masterful and sympathetic leader- 
ship of the people of America. If it is not CaU'in Coolidge, it will 
be someone tremendously like him in traits, in personality, in sim- 
plicity, in ideals, and solid convictions, whom the people of America 
will demand and clamour for as their Chief Executive these next 
four years. 



ARTICLE IV. 
THE PEOPLE'S CRY 

(December, 1919) 



Today's call to life is a political call as well as religious. Indeed 
the two have much in common. Whether our cry is "save democ- 
racy" or "make the world safe for* democracy" or "make the world 
safe for Christian democracy" it can be done only through that type 
of democratic Christianity which does not hold itself aloof from the 
problems of politics and of government. Only true, noble, and in- 
dulgent citizenship can save and s:afe-guard civilization. And the 
ballot has more power than bullets. Therefore fronting a presiden- 
tial election as we dio as citizens who cherish sacredly the responsi- 
bilities of the suffrage, we feel that at our country's ballot-box we 
are to fight a battle fori the world. The world's greatest office of 
power and prestige is the presidency of the United States of America. 
In these days of tremendous unrest when men and things, are edging 
forward in the dark, it is of prime importance that the man who 
shall assume the presidency iri the immediate future, shall embody 
the ideals, the strength, the sincerity, the intellectual and spiritual 
discernment for which all the world isl hungry and famishing. The 
new president — for there will be a new one — will be a world figure 
and the type of man which must be elected is a world necessity. 
This is no ordinary election, and the man elected^ must be no ordin- 
ary man. He must be many levels higher than the greedy politician. 
He must be a man set apart "by the gods" ordiained as it were for 
the distinct purpose of leading, Moses-like, the people through the 
wildernesis of our modern confusion and unrest. Moses of old squirm- 
ed under his task and tried to beg off, knowing that he was slow of 
speech, realizing his incapacity for a staggering responsibility, but 
this meekness became his strength. It is just as certain that no in- 
flated wind-bag of egotism can ever be equal to the trying demands 
of the presiidency in the next four years,, and that only he who will 
bend to slave in meekness at its herculian task can ever hope to ful- 
fill the dlemands of the next few years. The Presidency is no place 
of honored retirement. It calls for servant-hood of the hardest and 
most galling sort„ A mere soldier's uniform, no more than a mere 
dress siuit, is equal to its severity andi its seriousness. It requires 
a brain that sees, and a heart that throbs. The blood of the most 
virile statesmanship, the power of the most lofty patriotism, the 
highest loyalty to law, the honor of law, the dignity of law, the 
meaning and duty of law, are the qualities needed to put back-bone, 
courage, stability, and security into civilization everywhere. The 
foundation principles of government have been shaken in these lasit 
days. M)en have dared to fiy the red flag in the face of law, until 
enraged government is apt to die in its own excitement and the 
folly of its owni resentment. Above all we need calm andi poise at 
thd top of things. We need quiet strength. We need the dignity 
of silent control. We need a personality who is a recognized em- 
bodiment of law within himself. We need a firm hand on the 
throttle, a clear eye piercing through the dark, a rugged heart of pa- 
tient persistency pounding away at the problem of mankind. We 
ha\-e struck terrible days. Can ci\41ization weather the storm? 
Who will guide us thru? Who will make sure the destiny of 



civilization? Such question-marks lead to exclamation-points. 
We will have nothing- to do with cheap politicians out gunning 
for the presidency. We want a sincere, earnest man, a man 
of candour, courage, and conviction, a man who stands clean, 
who fronts the truth, who is a legalist of the legalists, who is 
unyielding and speaks with no puny voice. This is; not my 
lonely cry, it is the cry of the American people, who arei yearning 
for prophetic leadership and who are hungering for one who 
stands with them on: their level of heartbreak, of sacrifice, of 
loyalty and devotion, for one who is willing to work without plaudits 
and who cares more for doing duty than for the emoluments of of- 
fice. For those of us who have been alive to the world, alive to its 
sorrows and needs, perhaps no one has so impressed us with such 
qualities as has Calvin Coolidge the governor of Massachusetts. Just 
to. edge near the man, to see candour written all over his face, to see 
in every detail of his bearing a superb and) quiet dignity that sur- 
rendersi nothing, to see the firmness of law, and, with all, a most 
gracious serious--mindedness, a simplicity and unpretensiousness that 
arel indeed regal for splendour — I tell you that is so novel and so 
heartening to those of us of the common people that we leap to a 
high faith that after all, truei statesmanship of a patriotic, unselfish, 
self-sacrificing sort is not dead in our Amercian life. My fellow 
citizens, whom do we want for President? If we have true, earnest, 
indulgent love for our America, we are not going to throw this office 
to the winds, nor to any who would prey upon it. We are going to 
seriously and sacredly dig about for the gems and jewels of real 
worth hid away, rather than be lost in enthusiasmsi at cheap stones 
that glitter in the sur^, but too many to be precious. America has 
be6n discovered and now America must discover. It would seem 
that no man who has been much in the seething pot at Washington 
can hold the people. America must find a man. Many are thinking 
he has been found. If he has been found others will at once seek to 
knife him. This, political game has no sicruples, except with those 
who are too tall and majestic to stoop to dishonor, and who would be 
rather whittled down than to stoop to compromise what they believe 
and what they are. It is a fact severe that good men are sometimes 
at the mercy of the selfish. But now, as never, the American people 
are not blind. Sorrow, sacrifice, the ultimate tests of devotion have 
opened their eyes, till they gee with clearness. And if the American 
people discover their man, however, or wherever, they are going to 
call for him, and get him, or know the reason why. Calvin Coolidge 
is too busy to be out talking for himself. Even if he had time, he 
doesn't know how. It is because duty is always out and beyond him- 
self. He is not busy looking at himself, praising himself, pampering 
himrelf, and thisi is very evident to all who have seen him or know 
anything about his history and his life's toiU how he has been 
climbing the ladder of his public service, rung by rung, till he is 
now only one rung from the top^ People know that if Calvin Cool- 
idge is ever to be taken advantage of as president of the United 
States, it will not h& because Calvin Coolidge is out in the streets 
leading the cheers for himself, but, if it comes at all, it is because 
the people of the country have discovered! him quietly lost in his 
work and because they like him,, want him, trust him, ask for him 
and demand him. Things are beginning to look that way at present. 
Am l! voicing something new? I am recording what seem to me 
the signs of the times). As with no other potential candidate, the 
power and popularity of Calvin Coolidge is not a boom, but a demand 
— the call of the people. And political parties know exactly what 

—13— 



the call of the people means. Kt is a call they cannot well deny or 
abuse. 

We all know the worth and the excellence of soldiers), but it 
seems that the day for the military hero in the place of statesman- 
ship belongs to a past military agef. In these days of unsipeakable 
perplexity no soldier will be elevated' to such a responsibility as the 
presidency unless he is also a proven statesman. A good farmer 
would perhaps not be a- good sailor, or vice versa unless either were 
really both, likewise when it comes to the matter of the presidency, 
statesmanship shall be fundamental, military glory only incidental. 
We can give our military heroesi glory enough, and we cannot give 
them too muchi, but as they all cannot be president, there is no high 
virtue in making any one of them president. Moreover, the popular 
mind does not turn that way in the twentieth centur3% unless the 
soldier is also a statesman. If he is that, then well and good and by 
all means give him preference. Thank God for "hero worship," it 
has been our salvation again and agairv. To admire great men and 
good, to fasten ourselves to them and support them, to be loyal to 
them, to be guided by their genius and to be shielded by their 
strength, to magnify their virtues and to emulate them, has been a 
stimulation and inspiration throughout the building ages of civiliza- 
tion. Men and women of splendor and might capture and charm the 
imaginations and stir the holy enthusiasms and highest purposes of 
mankind. And there are the heroisms of the quiet duty, — both 
grand and good,, when the cause is grand and good. AndJ now, after 
the most wonderful heroisms of war, that the world has ever known, 
our greatest need is for the heroisms of true statesmanship to guide 
us through the perilous aftermath of war, to the ways of peace, in- 
dustry, learning, individual and social sincerity. The "man of the 
hour" has been a dead phrase, dragged to its death by abuse, for it 
was pinned on every man that wanted anything. But as never be- 
fore in the history of our beloved America!, this phrase has living 
meaning. It is indeed "the hour" that trembles with human destiny. 
And for this hour who is "the man"? It is no prophecy, but to feel 
the pulse of our nation's life today, it is plain, that the man who will 
be our next president will be the man who achieves, thinks, wins by 
sheer hard work and merit. He will not win by an artificial, super- 
ficial program, but simply because" he is the man the people want 
and clamour for, the man in whom the people have a quiet and an 
inspired faith, the man in whom the people have seen the qualities 
of power, and those qualities asserted with humble but telling rug- 
gedness in the hour of public need. Let loud mouths spit their va- 
pour and roari their thunder, — above them shall be heard the sublime 
silences of dignified, uncompromising statesmanship. In this time 
when the established forces for stabilizing our social and political 
life are shaken by vast storms from every point of the compass and 
from every distance of the planet, our search is for a man who can 
measure to the task, — a man sizable for the herculian work, a man 
who, withi holy awe for the seriousness of duty and with a sacred 
self-surrender and dedication for the responsibilities that go with op- 
portunity, will bend his' back, his mind, his heart to lift our common 
loadj, preserve the strength of our beloved America and the^ strength 
of her noble institutions, and to help promote government, and 
friendsihip among all the peoples of the earth. If Calvin Coolidge 
is not that man, we will let him alone, severely alone. If Calvin 
Coolidge is that man, we want him and we will have him. Some at 
the present time are thinking that Calvin Coolidge is that man. 

—14— 



ARTICLE V. 
CALVIN COOLIDGE— HIS STERLING QUALITIES 

(May 28, 1920) 



Calvin Coolidgei stands in the might of his middle manhood — 
just at that coveted period of life's opportunity, where there are 
years of preparation and experience behind one and years of promise 
and efficiency ahead. He is that type of personality which attracts, 
andi which embodies leadership. He is a little above medium height, 
tall if anything, of slender build, erect, with a good-shaped head, 
high, broad,, full forehead, exceedingly suggestive of the intellectual, 
a thin, face, long, sharp nose, thin lips, eyes sharp, keen, cutting. A 
vast shrewdness and clear, quick intellectual power, together with 
the assurance of perfect poise and the confidence that comes from 
strength are written unmistakably all over his face. Perhaps when 
you( look at his face, it does not strike you as being remarkable,, un- 
til you begin in your thought to compare it with other faces that you 
know, and then you are totallv convinced that the face of Calvin 
Coolidge is unusual — unusual for strength, firmness, calm, intelli- 
gence, and beyond this, unusual for simplicity, candor, frankness. 
There is nothing cheap or deceitful or evasive even hinted at on his 
face. His face is as honest as an open book. To look at him closely 
and intently and read all his face tells inspires absolute contentment 
and confidence. 

Apart from its intellectual vigor and the stamp of serious studi- 
ousness, his face is childlike for its sincerity, its meekness, its beauty 
of simplicitv. Candor is writtten all over him. And one feels, to look 
on his face, that nothing is held back or hidden. It is indeed one of 
the most unusual faces to be sieen to-day anywhere in high office. It 
is as frank as the out-of-doors of Vermont, his native state, where 
God smiled on the hills and lit them to beauty. X fully believe if 
all the citizens of America could look on the face of Calvin Coolidge 
they would be inspired to that calm trust in him which they yearn 
for in their chief executive. He wins, not by methods, but just by 
what he is. He captures, not by tooting horns, empty phrases, wild 
promises, audacious insincerities) but by lofty thinking, by mandates, 
principles, the dignities of statesmanship, the sublimities of govern- 
ment. 

SUPERLATIVES OF MANHOOD 

Totally unpretentious, he deals, nevertheless, with superlatives, 
the superlatives of manhood, of personal and of public duty. He 
says: "'We do not make laws, we do but discover themi." And that 
principle is at the heart of his very life a,nd all he is; he feels that 
Baw is bigger than he is, it is supremQ. even as God is supreme, and 
he is looking up tol read eternal verities, find them out, and inter- 
pret them to his fellow-men. It is superb to-day to see statesman- 
ship that has the upward look, the vision that sees the majesty, the 
everlasting dignity of law, the eternal splendor of the truth and the 
right, and thei statesmanship that will not swerve an inch, nor dare 
in its heart to even, presume to blaspheme' or desecrate one detail of 
this eternal legal majesty and ruggedness. 

That sort of sitatesmanship is vast and superb, it has marked the 
very apex and summit of statesmanship in the most noble past, and 
it is the very statesmanship that to-day needs and yearns for. That 

—15— 



statesmanship that gets its decrees, not from below, but from above, 
IS not in our living- dlay s)o abundantly embodied in any personality 
as in Calvin Coolidge. It is the sort of statesmanship that makes 
itself immortal simply because it makes government and its institu- 
tions sacred and safeguards their perpetuity. It inspiresl reverence 
and confidence. It is the sort of statesmanship based on clean per. 
sonal living to which, and to which alone, the American people to- 
day look with any desire, any affection, any calm confidence, and 
solid enthusiasm. 

We, the people, clamor for unpretentious excellence in high of- 
fice to-day, a public integrity built on personal integrity, built on 
the spiritual interpretation of law and life, a fine statesmanship 
built on the very first requirement — fine manhood, stalwart deeds 
and responsibilities,, on the foundation of the truest loyalties to the 
simplest details of duty. 

HIS GRIPPING POWER OF DICTION 

Just to read his book, "Have Faith in Massachusetts,' ins(pires 
faith in Calvin Coolidge, the commanding governor of Massachusetts. 
"Above everything else be brief," is one of his laws. Into his book 
is packed' truth boiled down, condensed to its briefest strength un- 
til the philosophy and science of government and law are given in 
mandates. Even, to indulge in no sacrilege, Jesus of Nazareth, in 
the) sermon on the mount, gave the essence of true living in sen- 
tences of total truth, that to the living day are savord-thrusts of truth. 

The book by Calvin Coolidge reads like a text-book. It is a book 
of power and it cannot die for many a setting sun and the spin of 
many a century. Its mandates grip, its truths challenge, its sen- 
tences sitartle with their vigor and seem so total. When they are 
yielded over, principles have been told out of a heart that has com- 
prehended the genius and spirit of law, and once spoken, they seem 
to bear the finality of the truth. I call that power. When I read or 
hear Calvin Coolidge I put my thinking cap on, for I know I am to 
grip with immensities and majesties, simple and plain though they 
are, yet to challenge the attention of my mind and heart. 

The state papers of the governor have the diction of a Lincoln. 
That is no secret throughout Massachusetts), for it is a common state- 
ment in this grand old state of classic history and of literary lore. 
But this is by no means to say that these state papers are only mas- 
erpieces of literary polish. They are not merely combinations of 
pretty words — no, not at all. They are sturdy, virile, rugged, they 
have the sword-thrust and' the hammer-stroke. They drive truth 
home to the heart. They make truth live and throb. 

Calvin Coolidge believes that time is not so plenty as to be 
wastedi. He has developed the tremendous skill to do things that are 
to be done, quickly, do them well, to. do them with the genius of 
precision and with finality. When they are donel, they are done. 
And life is ready for its next duty. I also call that power. And none 
can deny that the governor of Massachusetts isl unique in this re- 
spect. 

NO TIME FOR USELESS WORDS 

It is also true with his words. He is brief. But when he has 
talked, something has been said. When he is through, he is 
through. He has no time for useless words. He does not "fool 
around" in a wilderness of words, trying to: arrive, and after he has 
sought to convey a little lightl then try to go through and emerge 
from another wilderness of words. As soon as he opens his mouth, 

— 16— 



thought begins to come forth, unembarrassed, unhampered, rugged, 
fundamental, vast, and when his intellect has transferred the an- 
alysis of his thinking to your mind, without one superfluous word, 
he quits. He must be gonei for a new duty captures his attention,— 
the old one has been discharged. 

Again in this directness, this quiet power, this pointed finality of 
public speech, Gov. Coolidge is unique. There is not a man in 
America that writes or speaks quite as doesi Calvin Coolidge. There 
is something exquisite, just a little extra, just a little surpassing 
about his style. His style has in it that uniqueness that will draw 
to it an increasing appreciation. Should Calvin Coolidge choose to 
be a builder of books, his books would win their way to every empire 
of earth. His style, his grip on the truth, and his conveyance of it 
are among thel most thrilling delights to any who yield to the charm 
of style, that in these recent days have found their way to the 
printed page. The student of literature will soon list Calvin 
Coolidge among those who command for the faultless style, and for 
stalwart utterance. This man of learning and letters, who loves 
law and lives it, has lit a new light in literature that will glow after 
all of usi are long dead. 



—17— 



ARTICLE VI. 
A MASSACHUSETTS AND A CIVILIZATION VICTORY 



Calvin Coolidge is looking mighty good as a man to be seriously 
considered for the Republican nomination for the presidency. The 
nomination of Calvin Coolidge would mean his sweeping country- 
wide election. That fact is not to be debated. He has won his high 
hold on America. He is the type of man and of the peerless quality, 
and has, won the most diignihed and rugged fight for the very sov- 
ereignty of law for which all of civilization is strivings, that has 
been called upon to be waged on American soil. While we congrat- 
ulate Mr. Coolidge himself on the vindication the people have given 
him for his statesmanship and Americanism we also congratulate 
Massachusetts., the United States, and world-wide civilization. Just 
as truly as what happened in Boston was as President Wilson said 
"a crime on civilization,'' s(0 by the voice of our people the re-elec- 
tion of Calvin Coolidge, and by this tremendous plurality, is a vid- 
tory for civilization. Mr. Coolidge last year got only 17,000 plural- 
ity, this year over 120,000 plurality and he got 317,191 votes or 39,000 
votes more than any man ever heretofore got for the governorship of 
Massachusetts. It was no wild-fire enthusiasm that put him in. 

Wolcott back in 1896, had a bigger plurality than Coolidge, it 
being the presidential year, on the silver issue, and McKinley for 
president, but Wolcott only got 258,204 votes. Coolidge on an oif 
year, not carried on a presidential election tide, got 317,191 votes. 
It is the greatest and most signal victory a man ever won in Massa- 
chusetts, and yet through all the campaign, Calvin Coolidge was 
modest, dignified, cool-headed, statesmanship, a full-sized gentleman 
and thrillingly American. Massachusetts is proud of her governor, 
and all America is proud of Calvin Coolidge. Yet in all this pride, 
doubtlessi no one is more humble than Calvin Coolidge himself, who, 
not as a public boss^, but as a public servant bends to lift the load of 
serious responsibilities that is upon him. 

The issue, fought to so phenomenal a victory in Massachusetts, 
where the attack on law and order was so acute, is in reality the big 
issue before the nation in this coming campaign. It; is not a partis- 
an issue. The world is really looking to the United States of America 
to slave it to law and to save it from anarchy. We must carry this 
victory of Massachusetts to a decided victory throughout the nation 
and that will mean for the world. The Republican party will seize 
the heart and mind of all America, if it drafts Calvin Coolidge as its 
standard bearer. He has climbed with patient perseverance from 
the humble ranks of life, going from petty office step by step to the 
governorship of Grand Old, Masgachusetts;, he has called on the peo- 
ple of the Commonwealth to be true to principles of law on which 
rests all traditional and actual liberty, he has inspired the solid en- 
thusiasms of confidence and respect told by 317,191 votes, in a day 
of unrest when the Red Flag daresj to fly in the face of Old Glory; 
he has thrilled the nation, he has; given new hope, new heart, new 
security to civilization. Calvin Coolidge has never been defeated. 
But' that is neither here nor there, except that he stands for the real 
and the right of every issue. Through the years he has been build- 
ing for the distance, winning his way', not by compromising devices 
but by great and abiding sincerities. He is exactly the sort of a man 

—18— 



for whom the people of America are calling and it is no hasty pre- 
diction that they will not only clamor for him but demand him. 
The election of Calvin Coolidge as president of the United States, 
after this issue has been thus fought and won in grand old Massa- 
chusetts would be a victory for law and order everywhere. It would 
be a victory for all mankind. It is a vital issue. Yes, it is| a neces- 
sity that this victory of Massachusetts be made not nominally but 
actually the victory of all America, the victory of all peoples, who 
struggle for the sovereignty of law;, and for liberty that comes alone 
thru law. 

THE NATION'S OPPORTUNITY 

Calvin Coolidge is the Nation's opportunity. This quiet, cool- 
headed, firm and purposeful man would pufi backbone into govern- 
ment everywhere. No one can name or define the measure of his 
influence thus far in stabilizing government, wherever government 
is found. His very example, the unique achievement which he 
wrought has injected courage into conduct on the part of executives 
everywhere, and more than that, it has weakened the defiance and 
bold attacks of those who presiume to leap at the throat of govern- 
ment. Governor Coolidge has thrilled the thinking and law-abiding 
people of our Commonwealth, and of people everywhere, who have 
sized up the situation and the import of his stand. Mr. Coolidge has 
been modest enough to read himself out of the whole performance. 
He has talked only about the issue and the significance of the right. 
He has not been talking about "what I did and I did/' And yet, de- 
spite hist own true modesty, we all well know that it was law as em- 
bodied in the conviction and personality of Calvin Coolidge which 
stood like granite for the integrity of government. True heroism 
does not stand around to indulge self-glory, but abashed by the pub- 
licity that its achievement brings slinks away into retirement, hav- 
ing been faithful to its duty. And so with Calvin Coolidge. Others 
have been speaking his praise, not he himself. Not many politicians 
are bashful. Nowadays they are chiefly about the boldest folk out. 
Meekness is not common to the breed. But Calvin Coolidge is 
unique. At the praising of his name, he slinks from view. No 
swelling of the chest, no flaunting of self-glory ever could be held 
against this quiet, firm, unassuming gentleman and statesman. It 
is as good as a tonic to know that a man of such calibre, such size, 
and such type is alive. He is the type that the American people, if 
they ever get to know him, will not only admire, but learn to love. 
He himself is and lives all he talks. If he speaks about righteous- 
ness, integrity, all may be totally confident that these forces are 
operative in his own personal living. If he talks law and order we 
may well know that they are alreadiy embodied in his own life. He 
is himsielf superb for legalism, poise, stability, power — quiet and con- 
fident power. All these and their associate qualities are evident in 
his total bearing and every expression of his personality. Right at 
home, under the glint and glare of the closest scrutiny, he is hon- 
ored and beloved, as a man of nobility and sincerity and as a man 
gifted, with a most marvelous mind. The owner of no great local in- 
dustry, a man of very mediocre means, paying rent for his home in 
a two-tenement house, one of the common people, and loved by his 
fellows. Calvin Coolidge has made his home town, Northampton, 
and his college town, Amherst, to gparkle with what he himself is. 
And in him Massachusetts and America have been seeing states- 
manship superb. O'ne great beauty of it all, he is strictly tend- 
ing to his duties as governor of Massiachusetts, and is not em- 

—19— 



ploying- his time and energy seeking- higher honors. He is hum- 
ble), faithful, earnest -and of the Lincoln type. He is a real states- 
man^ not a mere self-advertising- politician. His speeches and 
state papers are masterpiecesi of superb diction and sturdy 
thought. Nothing anywhere in legal literature excels them. 
Those who know him at alls through the medium of close ob- 
servation, are passionately ambitious that he became kno-wn 
a-nd well known, and appreciatively known throughout the entire 
country. As he himself will not speak and announce what he is, 
others are impelled and persuaded to speak of him and for him. Ihe 
quiet and undramatic toiling of some men is apt to be overlooked. 
Ajs for Calvin Coolidge — he is so unpretentious and so apart from 
all presumption that he is prone to keep his true greatness hid 
away and lonely. He is no idler or trifler. He is the sort which 
captures admiration, fires the imagintion, and wins the solid 
enthusiasms of belief in his integrity and ability. He is some- 
what the pride of the East and thousands count him the biggest 
man in the country for the biggest and hardest job in the 
World, namely the presidency of the United States of America. 
His state papers are Lincoln-strong for quality. He is a master 
thinker, a modest gentleman, and a statesman of vhe highest order. 
He is America's Opportunity. 



ARTICLE VII. 
CALVIN COOLIDGE AND THE PRESIDENCY 



It should be now,, as never, the office looking for the man, rather 
than the man looking- for the office. Herein lies the discrimination 
between the statesman and the politician. Statesmen of skill and 
first worth have often been superceded in place by compromising 
politicians, for statesmen are apt to be modest pertaining Lo them- 
selves, while this virtue of modesty is not noticeable in the make-up 
of ordinary politicians. Politicians sacrifice the public good to feed 
themselves with glory. Statesmen often sacrifice themselves to save 
the state, its dignity, its strength, its sacred life. Behold the hog, 
and behold the servant! To whom do we look in these fretful days? 
Nothing in 192Q shall be so significant for America, and the world, 
as the presidential election. Fortunes of mankind tremble on it. 
It can only be approached with a thinking and a religious serious- 
ness. The ballot is a sacred trust. We need, today, a man Lincoln- 
like, one whose mind and heart are touched by the infinite sorrow 
of the world, one whose spirit is tugging at the problem of the race, 
— I mean the human race, not the Presidential race. We are see- 
ing men, by big number, looking for the office. If all who want 
it would or could be elected, we almost wonder who would be left to 
be "the people."" This light remark soon irons itself out into seri- 
ousness, for while many are seeking the office, the true American 
people are quietly, earnestly, thoughfully, prayerfully seeking a man, 
a manly man, a humble, earnest, a loyal man, a man who will work, 
and think, and get under the public load, a man who is too busy 
with tremendous things to be blowing his horn,, but who in quiet 
dignity and in the strength of a great conviction, slaves at his task. 
Never did we despise politicians as now, never did we loathe cheap 
public men, as now, never did we turn away with such, disgust from 
the tiny dwarfed spirits that are out crying their own qualities as 
now. We turn earnestly today toward the man of humility, the man 
of hard work, of courage, and of quiet aervanthood, and somehow in 
soich a man we place our hope and our faith. In the final analysis 
the people of this country are going to ask for just such a man, 
they will be wary and careful, they will think once,, twice, and a 
thousand timesi for they have no desire in this trembling hour to 
risk their destinies and those of their children with the mere office- 
seeker, or with the man o.f no moral, or legal principle, but, 
when in their still hunt; they find the man who is the quiet 
embodiment of personal virtue, and of the true dignity of un- 
compromising selfhood, who speaks only when words are loaded 
with thought and speaks, with courageous ruggedness — when 
the American people, whose hearts and imaginations) at this 
time are fixed and captured only by the qualities of a sub- 
stantial idealism^— when in their patient searching they discover 
a man with such qualities, regardless of party, regardless 
of almost everything else under the sun, the^- will ask for that 
man, clamour for him, beg for him, and yes they will demand 
him. They will be satisfied with no other. There are responsibili- 
ties that gd with power, and the people of America are not go- 
ing to yield over the power of thisi chief office in the world to 
the one who will flaunt and prosecute it for his own plaudits, 
but who in all the meekness of servanthood, which is the spirit 



of true greatness, will assume the responsibilities of that power, 
with a most solemn sense of the sacred trust committed to^ his 
care. The thinking quality of our American citizenship, make 
up thei true friendsi, and choice of law and order. They 
discern today, as never beforej, and they^, discern through the 
windows of their own heart-break, the sanctities which so many men 
in public life have been so unspeakably desecrating, that, weary of 
political tricksters, and wear-"' of political hypocrisy, and weary of 
the travesty on unsullied legalism and the blasphemy on dignified 
government, the American people are not going* to release very read- 
ily to any individual the power andi responsibility of the Presidency. 
As any man, who of any spiritual size considers the sacred dignity 
of the marriage altar, would not seriously consider any would-be 
candidate fwho superficially parades before him, but rather one who 
has captured his intellectual and spiritual confidence and admira- 
tion, so the American people are not looking at the parade of those 
marching as candidates, keeping step to their own drum beat, but 
they are looking earnestly at the man, who toiling- arduously at his 
task, has captured their increasing confidence, affection, and admira- 
tion,. Against the back-ground of the war, the background of sac- 
rifice, heart-break, and the sorrowing sincerities of mankind, 
against the background of idealism and sublimity in the very heart 
o.f humanity, the cheap politician, out crying his own praise, making 
the old cheap political appeals that hoodwinked so many in former 
days, — such thing's look silly, laughable, ves pathetic and disgusting 
today. Other men are out bursting their throatsi crying their own 
praises, whooping it up for themselves;, beating their own drums, 
tooting their whistles, exercising the brawn of silly political gym- 
nastics), but there is a statesman in Massachusetts, who we know is 
hard at work, busy at his task, exercising the brain and heart that 
yield themselves over to the faithful, unpretentious and earnest do- 
ing of duty. His is a faithful statesmanship, he is a true ser^^ant. 
r need not speak his name, for his name is on the lips of men far and 
near, so that Americans are wondering ifl, indeed', they have not at 
last found the man for whom they have been looking, the man in 
whose mind is that genius of discernment, in whose heart is that 
idealistic legalism, whose personality is the very embodiment of 
what they cherish, and for which during these last dark years they 
have been giving their all to preserve. If the American people 
come to believe, as seems to be the trend of their confidence,, that 
this quiet and earnest man of Massachusetts is to this measure ex- 
pressive of their own desires, and the living embodiment of their 
own truest ideals, then the American people will have this man as 
their chief servant, and they will have no other, and nothing can 
stop them. The American people are built that way. The fact is, 
not methods, but sublimities, not schemes but dignities, not trumpet- 
blasts, but quiet sanctities shall determine who the next President of 
the American people shall be. He shall come to his responsibility 
not by the proud parade, but by the bent back of hard toil. He shall 
come not by a boom, but by a demand of the people. He shall come 
not with gushing self-confidence, but with a trembling awe for the 
sacredness of his duty. Only he who comes in such a fashion can 
come at all. The American people are too broken to have any joy 
in a big-chested egotist, — they want a servant, the man who will 
slave at his task, the man who in the humility of all seriousness will 
tug at their problems,, and at the problems of the world. It matters 
not at all what party he is from. Government and civilization are 



above party. It matters not at all what section of the country he 
is from, whether New Mexico, Montana, Missouri, Massachusetts, or 
what part. The Empires of humanity are above the traditions and 
localisms of petty notion,. It matters much however whether or not 
he has been mixed up in the broils;, the confusions, andi entangle- 
ments of the last few years. Just so he comes, clean of life, of mind, 
of heart, clean of purpose, true to government and righteousness, 
courageous and powerful, and humble — just so he comes, that I take 
it, is what the American people are yearning for today. The Lincoln 
of our last generation is dead, except that he lives in the throbbing 
hearts of men, all over the planet. We must find some one truly 
Lincoln-like fqr a bleeding, broken world today, someone who has 
kept still unless there was reason for speaking, and who, when he 
spoke, spoke with such sublimity and sturdy courage, that all men 
admired, and- who, when he acted, acted with the master-stroke. 
Matters local often are world-wide with meaning. The voice that 
speaks out of the clamour of a city in terror, may be the final answer 
for our whole American civilization. The pep, the courage, the 
virility, the nobility of one great deed, not only puts pep, courage 
and backbone into the life of law and government through out 
America, but it reveals under fire, the quality of the doer of the 
deed. Souls tell what they are only in the testing, and the chief 
genuineness of it all is the humility of the heoric. Men have been 
alive on the planet long enough tci need onlv a flash-light of revela- 
tion, in the darkness of things, to discern the souls of power. Genius 
i^ persistency, it is patient toiling, faithful building, but after the 
long years, its crowning achievements are the master-strokes of the 
moment. What a soul does at the moment of crisis in spite of vast 
tonnage of pressure, throws open the hidden secrets, tells the whole 
sitory of life's quality and power. Moments throb with meaning, and 
men are finding that out and they seize moments and employ them 
for centuries and for destinies. The one argument of a man, 
or for a man, is the argument o.f what he does and what 
he is. All else is sham and nothingness. In the day 
of the blackest blasphemies on the sacredness of our living, 
we want for our chief, our servant, the man of the loyalties, 
whom we know by the testing, will stand like rock in the hour 
of cyclone. We want a true brain, and a huge soul, a soul 
of dignity and candour and simplicity of motive and goodness to 
lead us tlirough the dark of things. We will not follow any 
other. Human sentiment is not wishy-washy now-a-days. It 
is not to be played! with in this time of stern necessities, and of fal- 
tering hopes, and yet a time of human sublimitiesi and of a human 
faith that refuses to die. Civilization lias been nearer the break- 
down of government in these times than ever before. There is no 
denying of this and there is no fooling with the seriousness and the 
delicacy of it. Into all the channels of our political and govern- 
mental affairs must be turned the currents of life and of stabilizing 
power. The siurest way this can be ^one is to get into our chief of- 
fice, for the personification of government, that statesmanship which 
is the living embodiment of legalism, of pure motive, of true sinceri- 
ty, and the highest and most substantial idealism of our day. Cal- 
vin Coolidge is all of this. 



-23— 



ARTICLE VIII. 
CALVIN COOLIDGE^HIS FIBER OF MIND AND 

HEART 

(Right after his re-election to the Governorship.) 



Having served in the City Council,, and as city solicitor of 
Northampton, as state representative, mayor of his home city, State 
Senator, President of the Senate, as Lieutenant Governor, and one of 
mosit conspicuous ability, and then as Governor of the Bay State 
with such poise, firmness, and statesmanship as ta attract the atten- 
tion and capture the confidence of all America, Calvin Coolidge has 
risen through the logical steps, and ever a man of marked studious- 
ness in the field of law and government^, till he stands today a com- 
manding national figure, in whom citizenship, far and wide, see 
embodied and fearlessly expressed those qualities which if 
released i|n the added prestige of the presidency would in- 
ject, as nothing else would' or could, stability and security into gov- 
ernment and civilization which have been shaken and endangered 
during the lasit few years as never before in the history of the 
World. Mr. Coolidge has| never been defeated. That is neither here 
nor there. To know the man is to know that his constant victories 
have been due, not merely to unerring diplomacy and a superbly 
clever discernment, but a thousand times more to the man himself, 
his genuineness, his hundred percent. Americanism, his higher loy- 
alty to the higher things of personal and public living, his 
unyielding legalism, his caution, his care, his calm, his cool-headed- 
nessl, his clear seeing and thinking and his dauntless courage. He 
is every inch a man;, a patriot, a statesman, a thinker. He has never 
lost his siteadiness of head or nerve. Never in his life has he been 
rattlei-brained, nor has he gushed or splurged. And he has never 
been swept away by excitement, passion, frenzy, or clamor. He has 
always been first andt foremost master of himself, and then master of 
the situation. He hasi thought,, and thought true and well, before he 
has spoken or acted. And when he has spoken or acted, it has been 
with deliberation, decisiveness, finality. Any who know Calvin Cool- 
idige know that what he has said has been well said, what he has 
done has been well done, and is exceedingly apt to be right. He is 
slavislhly faithful to his trust. He attributes a serious sacredness to 
his duty. He feels the immensity of living and the immensity of 
responsibility. If the public gives him something to dO', he believes 
that he must give answer to the public for the trust which has been 
committed to his care, that he must be the fulfillment of all that 
the public expects and needs, or he is recreant to that trust. And 
it is because of this idealism in his conception of public office that 
Calvin Coolidge has never been a failure. He knows and embodies 
the true secret of success, — success is enthroned within his own per- 
sonal living. His character is*without blemish. He is one of the 
most virile intellectual giants of our day. He is the clearest and the 
most ccmprehensive of legalists. He is one of the most trenchant 
writers that has couched truth in words in this generation. His 
words leap alive and all a'tingle from the printed page. His 
thoughts slpring agile and athlete-limbed before us with almost an 
uncanny bigness of wisdom. He talks in proverbs. 

Around such a personality come, of course, question-marks as to 
just who he is. What is( his identity? What started him forth on 
such a stride across the empires of civilization? Along with the ex- 

—24— 



clamation-points of praise, commendation, confidence, enthusiasm, 
admiration that surround the statesmanship and the intellectual dig- 
nity oif Calvin Coolidge, there comei the question-marks as to the ro- 
mance of his living-, the whither of the man. the how of his early 
days, and those personal thingsi that belong to the heart-throbs, the 
poetries, the home-like things of all our human living. 

Calvin Coolidge was born in Plymouth, Vermont,, July 4th, 1872. 
His early home was a small farm, and humble enough to capture the 
imatfinations and to be true to. the traditions, so sacred and so well lov- 
ed in the heart of every American. In his character and courage seem 
tO' be the very firmness of the granite out of which are built the 
hills of Vermont, his native state. He was born on the 4th of July, 
a fact in itself not significant, but it is significant that for patriot- 
ism, for Americanism;, for unswerving loyalty to the traditions, the 
democracy, the fundamentals of our national life, no one surpasses 
Calvin Coolidge. He is under 50 years of age by a margin of a 
couple of years — and stands at that vigor of manhood, when brain 
and heart and experience andi promise are at their best. He has been 
in politics for 31 years, but it has been for him not so much a 
"game" as a big sincerety, a field for servanthood and the doing of a 
noble task. At Amherst College from which he graduated in 1895,, 
he revealed his type of scholarship and his legal mind,, was Grove 
Orator and won the Gold Medal — first prize — given by the Sons of 
the American Revolution, for the best essaiyl on the principles of the 
war for American Independence, in competition with undergraduates 
of all colleges in America. Studying law in the law office of Ham- 
mond & Field in Northampton and in twenty months being admitted 
to the bar, he became a lawyer of recognized power and skill. Mr. 
Coolidge's home is still in Northampton where he, with his family, 
consisiting of a wife and two young sons, live in one side of a double 
tenement house on Massasoit Street. In the last election for the 
Governorship of Massachusetts, Mr. Coolidge had the distinction 
of getting 59,987 more votes than any other man ever got for that 
office. Guild had received 188,068 votes, McCall had received 222,145 
votes, Murray Crane had polled 228,051 votes, and back in 1896 Wol- 
cott got 258,204 votes, the highest number before Coolidge's time. 
Calvin Coolidge in this, his second campaign received 317,191 votes, 
or 58,987 votes more than any other man ever received for the Gov- 
ernership in the history of Massachusetts. It was the more signal 
victory, in that his former victory over his democratic opponent, 
who was also his opponent this time, had been only by a 17,000 plu- 
rality. This sweeping victory, which way out-did the most sanguine 
hopes of his most ardent supporters, was the more signal in that it 
was not on the tide of any presidential election as was Wolcott's 
vote, nor was it on any other issue than a state issue, and a vindica- 
tion of and an expression of confidence in the ability and statesman- 
ship of Calvin Coolidge. That is, the issue did not come from out- 
side. It was local. And yet the issue — that of law and order, of true 
Americanism, of the sovereignty of Government, is the most sig- 
nificant issue in all the nation today. And that is exactly why all 
Americans from coast to coast instinctively look toward Calvin 
Coolidge, as the Nation's Opportunity. He, above any other man, be- 
cause of what he embodies, is in the position and has the personality 
and capacity to put back-bone into, our national life, and to revital- 
ize, stabilize, and make secure the fact of law and government. And 
that is just what America most needs today. It is what all civiliza- 
tion needs. Men, political parties, the Nation are a failure without 
just this thing. It is the biggest issue in America today. Calvin 

—25— 



Coolidge is the biggest figure and the most triumphant warrior in 
the testing of this issue on American soil. It is nothing strange 
that America should look his way. We in Massachusetts are some- 
times conservative and stoical — we are afraid of enthusiasm and are 
note-worthy laggards at iti, we are poor boosters — we have had many 
rugged Statesmen through the decades of our American life, but 
have given no Presidents to the nation since John Adams and John 
Quincey Adams. Nor are we boosting Calvin Coolidge. But his 
name is on the lips of all America and we are by no means blind, to 
his virtues nor unappreciative of his statesmanship. From one edge 
of the Commonwealth to the other, we gratefully realize the firm 
sense of security this man of legal force and honesty has put into 
our social and governmental life. As to. what was involved', there is 
no need nor disposition to recount the details of the issue in Boston, 
details well known from the Atlantic to the Pacific, from Canada to 
Mexico and, I doubt not, to all the civilized worldl, but it almost 
startles us;, when, in our thought we try to measure all that was 
really and essentially involved, all that would have resulted far and 
wide had he, Calvin Coolidge, been weak, vascilating, compromising, 
and "diplomatic" in the sense that he might have been. And it is 
totally impossible for anyone on earth to measure the far and wide 
influences of his stand, for law and order and government, all over 
the planet and through all the years to come. That influence and 
that effect belong to the silences and to the constructive quietudes 
of conserved and building civilization. Human liberty is through 
law, and Calvin Coolidge in the clamour of terror when his own po- 
litical fortunes were in the balance, thought only of the right, only 
of his public duty, only of government and its fundamental princi- 
ples, and he exercised everv prerogative of his office to assert the 
right. It has been said, when a friend solicitous for his political 
career, became worried about Mr. Coolidge's firm refusal to negotiate 
with the striking policemen and expressed that fear to the Governor 
he made the, characteristic reply: "It doesn't matter whether 1 am 
Governor of Massachusetts again or not." His one thought and concern 
was as to what wa,s fundamentally right. And that is what people 
in the final analysis and in these trying times like. In other days 
and times they may have tolerated and even applauded, to some ex- 
tent;, cheap men, crafty politicians, and petty performers, but not so 
today. People have suffered, and sacrificed too much, they have 
demonstrated their patriotism and loyalty, not shirking the cost and 
the supreme cost, to such a faithful degree,, they are so aware of the 
seriousness of the living day, they have seen the very foundations of 
government in all the world shaken as they have never been so shak- 
en before, they see such perils and such problems before them, that 
they will have nothing to do with corrupt men, or questionable men, 
or weak men, or unskilled men, or mere agreeable men, they want, 
ask for, clamour for, demand, must have good men, serious men, 
skilled men, statesmen-like men, men of brain, men of heart, men of 
ioo% Americanism, men of world vision|, for their service, and to be 
entrustedl with their government, their liberty, their peace and pros- 
perity. There is no disposition to say that there is only one man of 
that type in America. Not by any means. America is a fertile field 
for goodness, for greatness, for patriotism and democracy. Only to 
say, and it does not need to be said, that Calvin Coolidge bulks big 
in every way that thinking and earnest men are considering today. 
I say this as one of thel common people — the common people who, 
after all, make up the toiling arm, the throbbing mind, and the loyal 
heart of all America. 

—2^- 



ARTICLE IX. 

CALVIN COOLIDGE WELCOMED HOME FROM BOS- 
TON AFTER HIS NOMINATION FOR THE 
VICE-PRESIDENCY 

(June i6, 1920) 



Tuesdiay, June 15th at 5 p. rrii, Calvin Coolidge came home. 
Home for him is Northampton, Massachusetts. The town was glad- 
colored with bunting and flags. There was the music of bandsi, and 
of mirth, and of elated voices. The town was out with enthusiasm 
to welcome its pride and its beloved/. I stood in the crowd, and it 
was interesting to listen to some of the old characters of the town 
talking about "Cal," always in terms of intimate fondness, quiet con- 
fidence, and enthusiasm. I heard many reminiscences recited. One 
man said "Cal was not born great, he did not have greatness thrust 
upon him; he achieved greatness." "And this town owns him, by 
ding," i heard another say. *'Just watch him," said another, "he will 
be as cool as a cucumber. He never loses his head or gets excited." 
Calvin Coolidge, for the truth, never gets a crowd going, he never 
seeks) to excite a throng. His whole bearing is that of such unbroken 
calm and quietude that he invites the crowd to demonstrate the 
same calm and quietude, ;and which it is very much inclined to do. 
This is quite as much, if not more so, the contagious influence of his 
personality, than if with frenzied excitement he should work the 
crowd to excitement. There is no passion, no bluff, no camouflage to 
him. And' the guarantee is that the response of the crowd is total 
genuineness;, and as much a matter of quiet sincerity, as is his own 
true, simple, and unassuming manner. He will be a political novelty 
in Washington, as he has indeed been in Massachusetts. He is solid, 
strong, simple, true, sincere, brave, legalistic, modest, dignified, in- 
tellectual and silent. To see him and hear him, you know he is a 
man, and that he is as frank as sunshine. 

The welcome home: as Vice Presidential nominee was totalj it 
was wlioleso.me, appetizing, sincere, and solid with the enthusiasms of 
confidence and affection. Through the streets of Northampton went 
the procession, Mr. Coolidge bowingi again and again, with modest 
earnestness to his neighbors who were greeting him with loyal love. 
Arriving at the humble home, in response to words of welcome 
spoken to him, "Cal" talked to his neighbors in a simple, modest, ap- 
preciative and neighborly way. He is a man of the common people. 
His life is told in the "plain and simple annals of the poor" and one 
simply cannot help but think about Abraham Lincoln when he 
speaks. As we speak about Abraham Lincoln in reference to Calvin 
Coolidgol, it is not at all in the sense that the great Western Woods- 
man is alluded to in order to add luster to some modern name. In 
Calvin Coolidge we actually sense a similarity. Coming from com- 
parative poverty, from quiet rural life, winning by sheer merit, 
sincerity, and hard work, being honest, just, humble, appreciative, 
and intensely human, this man of admirable intellect and lowly heart 
is more Lincoln-likd than any one in public life since the Immortal 
Emancipator was in our midst. As Calvin Coolidge is loved by 
Northampton, as he is loved by Massachusetts, so he will be loved by 

—27— 



all America. Americans high and lo\v(, of all classes, degrees, and 
dispositions, the rich, the learned, the mighty, as well as the lowly, 
will rival each other to do him honor and to lay sincere and worthy 
tributes at his feet. I say with positiveness that Calvin Coolidge is 
the outstanding man in America today. 

CALVIN COOLIDGE— AN AMERICAN 

Facts are sharp-toothed, they dig deep and bite. They startle 
us to submission. There is no debate or persuasian against them. 
We may be wary to yield the soul's enthusiasms any man's way. We 
may with stolid stoicism wall them within us. But silence may be as 
dishonest as spoken untruth. If a man steps forth with that mien of 
mind, solemness of soul, and dignity of duty that impell the awaken- 
ing of inner admiration, there is no big virtue in not talking out 
loud. From edge to edge of America Calvin Coolidge is a name that 
stimulates praise and commands the enthusiasms of confidence. As 
for the manner of man himself, he is too big to be hurt by high 
plaudits, and lowly in heart enough to count them a challenge. They 
inspire him to endeavor the better to merit them. Truth, like a 
sword-thrust, startles his mind awake to the sense of duty. Hard 
work is his chief policy. He is energetic to comprehend all that is 
involved in any line of procedure. He takes time to think. He calls 
all his fine-orbed faculties into play in his critical thought-processes. 
When his mind has functioned to the full^ and he is certain of his 
conclusions, there is no altering. He is not hesitant with indecision, 
he is as firm to his view as rocki, there is no varying or vacilation. 
He has the humility of caution, he has the confidence of conviction. 
He is not proud, but he believes tremendously in Calvin Coolidge. 
Those same deep and true qualities, so cautiously schooled within 
him, that make him believe in himself are exactly the self-same 
qualities that make others believe in him. And he has that candour 
which invites the confidence of others. In this day of big matters, 
and big of necessity, there is a common confidence that he can give 
hope and help to America. He has that poise, that power of self 
possession, which gives the sense of security. Modest,* deliberate, 
cautious, deep in the silences of thought, speaking only when there 
is something to be said, and then with the finality of authority and 
the decisiveness of conviction, he is exactly that type of man, who, 
in the storm of our present world, reassures, gives trust, quietude 
and confidence. Calvin Coolidge tremendously strengthens the Re- 
publican ticket. His name has become a household possession 
throughout the land. He will lift the dignity of the Vice Presidencv, 
and make out of it a great office. Having a President-sized man in 
the second office of the Nation will give a double sense of strength 
to the government, and pour vitality through the veins and arteries 
of all our national life. The Vice Presidency will not shelve Calvin 
Coolidge. It will afford the Nation the opportunity the better to 
discover, aT^'-ireciate, and honor him. If he lives, and under the high 
tension to which he puts himself maintains his health, he is destined 
to come to the Presidency, which office he would grace with intel- 
lectual magnificence and statesmanship of the first order. Calvin 
Coolidge is a full-orbed American. His life, his career, his climb to 
position and power, his victory over circumstances are all tvpically 
American. If any should ask the distinctiveness of America, one 
might well reply "Look at Calvin Coolidge — he is an American." 
Even as the opportunities in America have made Calvin Coolidge, so 
America in return will be better and greater because of Calvin 
Coolidge. 



ARTICLE X. 

THE BIRTHDAY OF OUR GOVERNMENT AND OF 
OUR GOVERNOR 

(A Sermon Preached at Amherst, Mass., July 4, 1920) 



Tt is Avonderful to be the recipient of joysl handed down from the 
yesterdays, and made possible by souls who labored with vision and 
consecration. It is even more wonderful to be among- those who are 
seeking to build and with equal fidelity, for those who are to come. 
This is our glorious privilege as Americans. "Ij am an American 
citizen" is not an empty pretensions boastfulness. It is a significant 
responsibility. It is to possess the true charter of personal liberty, 
whose chief gift is the opportunity to serve. Because w& are a free 
people, we are in that unique position where we may minister to the 
entire world. Those, who in bondage hunger for liberty, instinc- 
tively look to America for hope and help. And many in our land 
have worked late and long- to furnish that hope and help to peoples 
of the earth who were otherwise hopeless and helpless. The miracle 
of American development is the romance of the centuries. On none 
of the pages of history is there a story of such charrrv', and thrill, and 
fascination as on those pages where are told the finding of America, 
the toil and spirit of the brave souls who plowed their way across 
the sea to our virgin soil,, and the story of the building of a "new 
nation conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that 
men are created free and equal. ..." On this our national day, it 
is easy to indulge the froth of an empty patriotism, born of the shal- 
low enthusiasms of thoughtlessness. But those of us who seek to dig 
deep to underlying principles, know that patriotism is a matter of 
life, from year to year,, it is not the noisy excitement of the hour, 
but the steadfast loyalty which is inspired by the sober and energetic 
enthusiasms of love. We must love our country, before we can be 
truly loyal to it. And we cannot presume on patriotism until we are 
loyal to our country!, which means loyalty to its laws, loyalty to its 
principles — those principles on which it was founded, and which are 
thp guarantee of its perpetuity. 

This identical year is notably significant, for it was three hun- 
dred years ago this year that the Pilgrim Fathers stepped forth on 
Plymouth Rock. It is impossible for us to totally suppress our pride 
for Massachusetts, and for the way that things historic wrap them- 
selves about our Commonwealth. All America and all the world in- 
stinctively look toward Massachusetts as being the birthplace of the 
new liberty. It is with sorrow that we are compelled to admit that 
in our recent years so much of the splendor of those historic ideals 
has been befouled and desecrated. Here in Massachusetts we must 
seek to maintain the true glory of the past, not alone of reverence 
for the past, but out of reverence for the ever-living present, and we 
must call on those who come to our shores to, help us in this big and 
holy obligation. Coming as I myself did from North Dakota, the vast 
new empire of the prairiesi, where the summer winds of wild liberty 
blow laden with the fragrance of the crocus and the wild rose, and in 
winter where the sky tumbles down its loads of snow, I felt thrills 
unspeakable upon coming into Massachusetts, for the land where I 
was cradled was all too new to have any history apart from that lost 
in the tragedy of the savages who once roamed the Western plains. 
It was in Massachusetts where the first great dreams were dreamed. 



It was in Massachusetts where the rock was bared and the pillars 
builded for our rugged institutions. It was in Massachusetts where 
men with the passion to be free alive in their hearts, hurled defiance 
against political and ecclesiastical slavery, met the storms, of savages 
and the still worse storms of a New England winter, and with cour- 
age dauntless, and hearts valorous built a new Nation, whose benefits 
WQ now enjoy and whose obligations we also now assume. 

When I first came to Massachusetts I visited many places of his- 
toric renown. lit was a place where had lived great men, who were 
the doers of great deedis. Perhaps did no places thrill me as did 
Concord and Lexington, and no place stimulated in me deeper, more 
grateful, and more quickening meditation than did Plymouth. Many 
of you undobutedly have been there and have looked on Plymouth 
Rock. Many of you have seen there the statue of "Faith," with its 
four figures looking to the four points of the compass, "Morality,"' 
"Law," "Education," and "Freedom." Indeed ethics, legalism, learn- 
ing and liberty, to the degree that they are vouchsafed and fostered 
in our nation, are the strength and splendor of our nation. The 
glory of our Nation rests in its citizenship. We cannot posit that 
glory in its traditions^ its constitution, its legal documents and its 
institutions, only in so far as these are expressive of the ideals and 
loyalties of its people. The glory of America! is the American peo- 
ple. As with them grew the history of our country, so with them 
rests its destiny. The stability of government is no more certain 
than the stability* of the human heart, the strength of its ideal is no 
greater than the vigor of the human mind, the steadfastness of its 
quality is not more abiding than the loyalties of human love and 
conviction. Patriotism is not a creed, but a life. It is not noisy 
demonstration, but consistent obedience. It is as firm in December 
as on the Fourth of July. 

A mandate written on paper cannot compare with a mandate ex- 
pressed in life. Law in a book is nothing as i-ompared with law 
embodied in a personality. Americanism, as an abstract ideal, is 
nothing as compared with Americanism actualized in a living, think- 
ing, energetic America. Today we have two birthdays in one. It is 
the birthday of America, and it is the brithday of Calvin Coolidge, 
whose very name is a synonym for Americanism. He represents pa- 
triotism not in the abstract, but patriotism of the most virile, per- 
sonalized, stalwart, and humane type. I know no better way to 
speak of patriotism than to speak of a patriot. I know no better way 
to speak of Americanism than to speak of an American. It is a 
strange and striking and suggestive coincidence that the birthday 
of America and of this distinguished American are the same. It is not a 
blind fatalism, nor a conscious foreordination, yet the very gods seem 
to have fixed his star of destiny. Heretofore we have linked patriot- 
ism with Washington, or we have linked it with Lincoln. Now the 
opportunity so readily yields itself to link it with Calvin Coolidge, 
one who is not long dead, but is today a living embodiment of 
American liberty as actualized through law. Let no one be so nar- 
row-minded as to mistake me. I risk no delicacy, and I venture no 
impropriety. I speak of him not as a candidate but as a citizen, not 
as a partisan but as a patriot, not as a politician but as an American, 
not as a politlical aspirant but as a man. Were he a member of any 
other party than the one to which he belongs my voice would be the 
same. Were he in private life, rather than the recipient of a gener- 
ally unexpected nomination for high office, his manhood, his citizen- 
ship would still appeal. I speak of him not as one idealized in the 

— .^o— 



intoxicated imaginations of mem, but as one soberly idolized and 
honored, as a strong and true American ought to be honored^m this 
day of much unrest. O'n this, the birthday of the American Govern- 
ment, I speak of Calvin Coolidge as a living embodiment of Arneri- 
canism. Patriotism and religion are akin. It is our religious duty 
to be true patriots, good citizens,, and law abiding Americans. 
America stands for what is right. It is built on principles of justice, 
and liberty, and righteousness. And these principles must be em- 
bodied in us, or we are not true Americans. The life and deeds of 
Calvin Coolidge cannot fail to be an inspiration], not only to the 
youth of America, but to all Americans who would support the prin- 
ciples upon which the Nation was founded. 

Calvin Coolidge stands for simple courage and honest fidelity. 
The question is asked "What's in a name?" Things and men are 
known not by their tag but by what they are. Yet it can at least 
be said that Calvin Coolidge is well-named. The name "Calvin" is 
true to the firm, resolute, legalistic dauntlessness of the man. He is 
as firmly grounded as the Calvinists of yesterday. He is as solid as 
the mountains of his own Vermont. Where his convictions are, there 
he is. Foe or storm cannot drive him away. There are men in this 
world who cannot be shaken. Calvin Coolidge is one. Moreover, the 
word "Coolidge"' rings true to the man. He is '"as cool as a cucuni- 
ber,'' and there is an edge to everything he says and does. He is 
sane, sober", gifted with poise, and sharp with decision and definite- 
ness.' Because of what he is the name Calvin Coolidge has signific- 
ance across the continent. That name is a synonym for law and 
order. It is the antithesis of lawlessness and disorder. It is a bind- 
ing guarantee for a square deal. It stands for vision, courage, and 
character. It means rugged fibre of mind and heart. It means vigor 
of pronouncement and virile declaration. The very name inspires 
and commands the enthusiasms of respect. 

Mr. Coolidge is so thoroughly patriotic that with prophetic 
shrewdmess he even chose a town by the name of, Plymouth to be 
born in. And he arrived in the landi of his love, and the 
land which he wasi to so nobly serve on the Fourth of 
July. It was on our Country's natal dayl, the 4th of July, back in 
11872, 48 years ago today that word went forth in that little Vermont 
country town that a man-child had been born. Little was the dream 
at that time of what was to be. But under the goodness of God and 
the democracy splendid of our country, souls are not circumscribed 
by the humbleness of their origins. It is not far in America from 
the Log Cabin to the White House; it is not a big distance from 
poverty to prestige, from obscurity to usefulness,, if only sincerity 
and hard work lead the way. And Calvin Coolidge was sincere. He 
knew how to work with unremitting and patient perseverence, he 
had the ability to think, he was inspired and impelled by tremend- 
ous convictions, until out of the solitudes of the unknown, he is 
lauded in the ^multitudes, as a dynamic personality whose ^^force of 
mind and soul has shaken the planet. "Do the day's work" has al- 
ways been his policy. And he kept ever at his immediate task until 
summoned to some higher and harder task. His has been thus a 
natural and a gradual rise, notfor the pampering of self, but for the 
assuming of some public obligation. His forward going has not been 
forced, pretentious, or done by the wild clamor, the drum-beat, and 
the flying of banners. It has been the uphill trudging of an earn- 
est and honest man who has sought to do his duty and to do it well. 
He has sought that faultlessness in the doing of his task which 



— .-^i— 



mig-ht be approximated in the full devotion to his work, which is the 
secret of all true efficiency. Early in life he was bent ont an educa- 
tion, and coming to our own historic college town, Amherst, he has 
hung new laurels on its brow. In College he won the gold medal 
offered by the Sons of the American Revolution for the best essay on 
the principles involved in the War for American Independence, a 
prize which he won in competition with the undergraduates of all 
American Colleges. In college he was a diligent student; he revealed 
the excellent fibre of his mind; he was quiet with that terrific silence 
which has always characterized him; he was honorable and honored, 
and when in 1895 he received his diploma he started forth in that ca^ 
reer which thus far has made him worthily elected a dozen or more 
times to some one of different offices, with the American people 
drafting his qualities of mind and] soul for still higher public em- 
ployment. He has never' been defeated, and he is so clear-seeing 
that he perhaps never will. He was a remarkable mayor of his home 
city, Northampton. In the State Legislature his was a most practical, 
sane and constructive statesmanship. The gods have supplied him 
with an amazing abundance of common sense. He has a business 
head, a wise tongue, wise both in action and restraint, and a loyal 
heart. He is well acquainted, and on good terms with hard work. 
His patriotism, his skill, his fidelity, his purpose, have always com- 
manded and merited confidence. So masterful an administrator of 
the State Senate he was that he was re-elected without a dissenting 
vote. And on that Boston issue which was essentially civilization- 
wide,, he was re-elected Governor of Massachusetts by a plurality of 
124,27^ votes, receiving 317,191 votes, the largest ever given to any 
one man by the electorate of Massachusetts, and this, not on the tide 
of a Presidential election. That is the testimony of the people of 
our historic Commonwealth concerning this man who wins not by 
"adijectives" and pretensious phrases and pleasing platitudes, but by 
what he is, what he believes and what he does, especially what he 
does under test and fire. 

True there was a tremendous issue involved. And also, true, the 
people could be depended upon to see the right and vindicate the 
right. It is asi Bishop McConnell says in the foreword to his "Demo 
cratic Christianity" "the marks of the control of the people will be 
upon every social institution henceforth as never before. The con- 
flict is a conflict of peoples — and the peoples who have passed 
through the fires of the battle will never turn back to the former 
daysj" He says this with regard to the war and the world upheaval. 
But, as Calvin Coolidge himself acclaims, the people can be depended 
upon. And they showed in the State election, as well as in their 
later response throughout the Nation, just where they stood in tlieir 
practical relationship with regard to the issue of law and order. I 
need not recite any of the gruesome, barbarous, and un-American de- 
tails of the- affair in Boston, but' only to hint at the far and wide re- 
sults contingent upon its correct settlement. In a very realistic and 
true sense Boston became the battle-ground for civilization. Society 
was facing one of its greatest crisies. Tlie thing that happened in 
Boston was only one ominous outbreak of the wide-spread social un- 
rest which was making wide-spread threats against the soverignty 
of Government and the supremacy of law. No one saw all that was 
involved more clearly than did Governor Coolidge himself, as re- 
vealed in that masterful address of his in the pre-election rally in 
which he showed that human liberty, and all the institutions and 
benefits of civilization rest on a basis of law and order. Let law 

—.32— 



-and order be over-run, these benefits and institutions are gone. Big 
forces were brought to bear upon the Governor to coerce him, to in- 
timidate him, to get him to take a compromising and conciliatory 
course. It seemed that his firm, defiant stand even jeapordized his 
own political fortunes and imperilled the chance for his re-election. 
Many another man would have, in diplomatic leniency, backed down 
with cowardice and deathly palour, mortally afraid of the issue. 
Not so with a statesman of the stuff of Calvin Coolidge. He saw, if 
the foe to the supremacy to law should win, the day, everywhere the 
elements of unrest and lawlessness would be encouraged to strike at 
the heart of Government, and the ultimate results would be un- 
speakable< Coolidge, regardless of danger, braced all the skill and 
all the conviction of his personality against the insidious peril. 
Like Horatius at the bridge he stood valiant to defend the right. 
Not only was the real Coolidge revealed in the issue, but new back- 
bone and courage and stability were injected into government of- 
ficials everywhere. Schooled all through his life to an unyielding 
legalism, to a reverence for law and for duty and for righteousness, 
Coolidge could do no other than to be his true self in all the fire, 
storm, and' crash of that situation, before which a less brave and no- 
ble man would have cowered and been swept away. Not expediency 
but duty was his call, and saying that "I'in this way treason lies" he 
struck his blow at those untoward forces which would presume to 
arrogate authority to themselves as over against the sovereign t-^' and 
dignity of the law. Government or anarchy were the two alterna- 
tives. In the face of possible political ruin he fearlessily hurled 
himself into the vortex as the champion of law and order, saying 
those words which shall refuse to die "there is no right to strike 
against the public safety by anyone, anywhere, anytime." He 
matched: the sinews of lawlessness! by the sinews of his own righte- 
ous courage, refusing to "traffic with disorder'' and placing a well- 
meritedl faith in the people to support him in his cause. The ul- 
timate results of his victory can only be guessed at, they can never 
be fully known, but it is a certainty that they are civilization-wide. 
That victory hag given support to government, and to law and order 
■everywhere. As Pope says 

"Order is Heaven's first law, and this confest. 
Some are, and must be, greater than the rest," 
Calvin Coolidge dared to do as his convictions commanded and there- 
by has become the harbinger of our greater liberty and our more 
complete security through legal restriction. The American people 
have responded to his courageous call and have by no means left him 
lonesome in the defense of the majesty of law. This free people can 
be. depended upon to support those institutions through which their 
very liberty is made their abiding possession. 

Lifer's conduct is built on life's philosiophy. Life's philosophy 
fits one for his own expression in emergency and test. When life 
is true and builds truej, it need not fear the evil day. Honesty and 
sincerity never need to take flight nor to clothe their deeds with 
smooth and oily words. People of honesty, honor, and the nobility 
•of sincerity are inspired by the very nature of the case, to a flaming 
belief in themselves. There is no disposition to talk about goodness 
in o.rder to cover up their lack of it. There is no cleverness to kneel 
at the altars of righteousness in order to shield their filthiness. It 
is what Calvin Coolidge is which speaks with even greater and more 
sta'-tling effectiveness than what he says. He believes that right is 
at the heart of the universe, that goodnesfs is elemental in progress, 

—33— 



that nothing- anywhere or in any manner justifies the compromise of 
the right. Where right is, there i^ abiding power. Where right is 
not, there lies crashing failure. Calvin Coolidge is not impelled by 
mere political expediency, but by usefulness to his country. His is 
true statesmanship, genuine patriotism, virile and decisive American- 
ism. He answers public needs, not by sophistry but by solid wisdom. 
He never loses his head. His feet are always on the grounds He is 
never drunk with prestige. He is never made dizzy by plaudits. 
He is clear-seeing. He is true-hearted. His own father paid him a 
most complete and substantial tribute by saying "Calvin can alwaj^s 
be depended upon to do the right thing." There are in this world 
some souls who canno.t be cajoled, intimidated, compromised, and 
who will not sell out, who would "prefer death with honor rather 
than life with shame" and Calvin Coolidge is of that sort whose 
souls are eternal. That i^ what makes him both our public oppor- 
tunity and our public necessity. The intellectual stiength, the cour- 
age, the honesty and determination that are written on his very 
face are the very stuff out of which he is budt_. His vision, his 
knowledge, his character are a public asset in high office today. 
His life has" a plan and he follows it. He is first the master of him- 
self. Law and order rule supreme within his own personality. 
They are the habit of his being. That is why v/ith calm and con- 
sistency he can demand and enforce them without. He is brief, he 
IS sure, he is humble, he is quiet, he has faith, he works, he is earnest 
and honest, he is no man's fool. And it is the philosophy in wliich 
his life is founded and grounded, which has revealed him under fire, 
and which has made him the defender of law and order. As a poli- 
tician, there is in him no letting down' of the dignity of the govern- 
ment which he is pledged to support and enforce. As a patriot he 
salutes "the Stars and Stripes forever the emblem of militant liber- 
ty." He is not a narrow partisan, but a patriot, who fights for those 
conditions which shall "provide for every American citizen the full 
measure of his manhood."' It is expressive of that disposition of his 
to inject more of the humane into government. Calvin Coolidge is 
as truly human as any statesman has ever been in American life. 
He does not see the public as impersonal integers to be exploited, 
he sees them as living men and women, for whom and for whose in- 
terests he must bend every talent and conviction in order to faith- 
fully serve. He regards himself not as boss, but as servant, and yet 
Sfometimes to serve means defiant independence to enforce the right 
as he sees it. Without truckling he would put his poise against the 
passions of the throng. He is as stalwart stuff as/ Roosevelt, but not 
so vociferous!; as humble as Lincoln, as honest and as superb a styl- 
ist; as immoveable as Lodge but less provincial; as firm as the gran- 
ite in the hills of Vermont and his name will be as abiding. Calvin 
Coolidge is a man! 1 do not believe in extolling only those who are 
long dead. He is alive in our living*, our throbbing, our needy yet 
our hopeful world today. We hear and read his words. We see his 
deeds. We heod his counsels. We are protected and benefited by 
his statesmanship. With men like him living in the America of to- 
day td inspire our youth, to command the confidence of our citizens, 
to safeguard the institutions of our Government and to defend our 
right to "life', liberty and the pursuit of happiness;/' how we Ameri- 
can people ought to take heart and go foreward with gladness and 
flaming faith! It is around such public servants that the American 
people throw the enthusiasms of affection. We cannot love what we 
cannot respect. Nature has built us that way. That which is cheap 
and commonplace can never hold our love. But we rely on the skill 

— 14— 



of Calvin Coolidge as being the skill of genuineness. His. great pop- 
ularity throughout the country, as demonstrated in the remarkable 
spontaneous enthusiasm of the Republican Convention reveals the 
fact that the Amercian people, believe in him. It is as though the 
people of the Nation endorse the verdict of the Massachusetts people 
that government shall endure and that its foes shall be driven back 
and down, and that law and order, asi personified in Calvin Coolidge, 
shall carry the torch of true liberty to all civilization. We believe 
him to be America's opportunity, and we are by noi means lonely 
in thinking it'. Humble, with no pomp, no pride, no empty, weak 
pretensiousness of pres/tige, this man has about him that true and 
splendid glory which shall light our nation with the higher majes- 
ties of law, and human liberty through law. The time calls for law 
to hold down social upheaval and to suppress such threatening vol- 
canic unrest which seems everywhere manifest. The affair in Bos- 
ton was only a symptom of humanity's social disease. Calvin Cool- 
idge knew the medicine. It was a bitter herb, but it healed the sore. 
Facts are sharp-toothed, and they bite, but they are saving in their 
merits. Coolidge saw that to defend the supremacy of the Govern- 
ment, and to suppress this, what Wilson termed "a crime against 
civilization," was at all costs essential), and this he did. And those 
who in revenge said that they were going to drive him back west 
across the Connecticut, by their un-Americanism only helped to 
drive him west clear to the Potomac where the dome of the National 
Capital glistens in the day. If there was any apathy of the public 
conscience, he aroused it from that apathy. He with heroic 
statesmanship!, defended the "inviobility of Government and the su- 
premacy, of law" declaring that "the sovereignty of the American 
people is not for sale,'" and, believing in the people whom he was 
serving, they have reciprocated by a full unstinted faith in him, 
which drafts him for higher service and releases him for larger op- 
portunity. With him opportunity means responsibility, and the duty 
to discharge it to the best of his ability!, that answer must be made 
to those who entrust him with it. Whether in matters of local con- 
cern or in issues that are civilization — big';, Calvin Coolidge can be re- 
lied on to do what he believes is right, and he can also be relied on 
to arrive at conclusions with most diligent care and concern. He is 
right when in things ultimate he believes that the people will not 
give their approval to "demagogues slavishly pandering to their sel- 
fishness, merchandising with the clamor of the hour." Justice, 
democracy, humanitarian legislation are in his creed as a statesman. 
Humanitarian legislation" he says "is going to be the handmaid of 
character." Well may we see that Calvin Coolidge has made his pa- 
tient and steady rise through merit. His is not partisanship, but 
citizenship, not egotism but patriotism. In place of show, there is 
toil. Nothing is staged, or made to sparkle under the flash-light of 
display. He never sells out. There is no handshaking, no brass 
band, no floating and flying banners. He is not a stooping politi- 
cian), but marching statesman. He is no politician of the oily, the 
smooth, and the stereotyped breed. There is only the certainty that 
his earnest thought will gO' forth and that it will arrive. There is 
the guarantee that he will not arbitrate the right, negotiate the 
truth, or make commerce of justice. He stands on fundamentals. 
He will release and encourage the right functions of government. 
He will interpret and enforce the law with ability, sincerity, and 
courage. There is in him nothing of traitordom, nothing of hypo- 
cracy. He can be trusted to do his exact duty as he sees it. He will 
do his set task, day by day. To "do the day's work*' is his plan, and 
he lives true to his plan. 

— .•^5— 



And thus it is that Calvin Coolidge embodies the ideals of the 
American people,i — he who is the inflexible defendei- of their sacred 
institutions and their cherished rights. By resisting those who re- 
sisted the government, by allowing no force to coerce or intimidate 
the government, he maintained unimpaired the institutions through 
which come our highest liberty. The dagger of lawlessness would 
have gladly stabbed him for he is the foe of lawlessness, the foe of 
all who 'would bedevil the machinery of thei law. With all his dras- 
tic enforcement of the law, and^ his unyielding legalism, he would 
humanize government and make it truly "of the people, bv the peo- 
ple, and for the people." He follows in the steps and in the spirit 
of the immortal Woodsman who said "with malice toward none, 
with charity for all, with firmness for the right as God gives us to 
see the right, let us finish the work we are in." And just as then, 
some one must bind up the nation's wounds, some one today must 
help heal the broken nerves of mankind. O'n him upon whose labor 
falls something of the indication and the approval of the eternal 
verities, comes some of this opportunity and high obligation. Duty 
is his master. By simple living, clear thinking, hard toiling, he 
seeks faithfully to do his duty, and to serve those who honor him 
with their confidence. 

Calvin Coolidge, of course, knows how to think. Thought is 
back of all. So compelling are his thoughts and utterances that the 
world has chosen to become his audience. His face is the map of 
candour, and it bearsi the stamp of intellect. His mind is not of the 
brilliant, sparkling, scintilating sort, perhaps, but it is a rugged 
mind from which leap thoughts like athletes, lithe-limbed and pow- 
erful. The vibrant sincerity of all he says is matched by the incis- 
iveness of his utterances. He is a master in the employment of apt 
words. They march or fight at his command. He marsfialls them 
in their most excelling splendor. They go sure and firm-footed at 
his direction. They fire bullets at his order. As a stylist Calvin 
Coolidge is the peer of the world's best. There is nothing of finer 
dignity or of more rugged mould in legal literature than the 
thoughts that leap from his pages — thoughts which are robed in 
faultless style. As a builder of books he would be welcomed to 
every most classic and exclusive hall. "The pen is mightier than 
the sword" and he wields the pen with a power that startles and en- 
raptures a world. As a writer he could command big dollars across 
the counters of commercial exchange), should he select to market his 
goodsj He has both the skill to think and' the skill toi well say what 
he thinks. In books it is the best of literary genius, in public ad- 
dress it may seem too lumbering for our laggard minds to compre- 
hend and fully appreciate. Brevity is one of his policies. He speaks 
with frugality but in proverbs clear, direct, comprehensive and com- 
pelling. He is said by those who know him to be a man of vast 
silences. He talks little. He listens well. He is thinking and learn- 
ing, so that if occasion comes what he says will count. And when 
he speaks it is with trenchant, pungent, cogent utterances which 
bombard all minds and hearts with logic, authority;, honesty and 
conviction. He could not be otherwise if he tried. That is he him- 
self. Conscientious himself, he makes his appeal upon the consci- 
ences of others. "IWe must forever smite the rock of public consci- 
einlcel" he says "if the waters of patriotism ara to pour out."' He be- 
lieves that "nothing is aettled until it is settled right." There is no 
stability apart from truth, truth elemental and fundamental through- 
out the universe, the first, the abiding, and the universal principle. 
His silences are startling. They seem as deep as the ocean. And 

— :,6— 



they seem to take us as far as' the edge of things. The eloquence 
of his silences stir us to meditation, while the terse, forceful elo- 
quence af his verbal deliveries stab, challenge and inspire. To make 
deep scrutiny of his printed addresses! and of his State papers causes 
us to know he indeedi has the ability to think. His simple truths are 
given with the decisiveness of Bible mandates and they have back of 
them the authority of truth and wisdom. O'ne of the most beautiful 
little classics! I' have ever read is his Lincoln Birthday proclamation. 
Ynu will do well to read it — and to seize its truth and to catch its 
charm and splendor. Long may he live to light the lamp of litera- 
ture, that it may shine to the joy, and stimulation of many minds. 

And the best is" said when it is remarked that Calvin Coolidge 
has character. It is a fine thing in a world of wholesome competi- 
tion, as this world is, to have ability. But ability without the guide 
and the guard of character is quite hopeless and helpless. Inspira- 
tion is often desperation, it is most always perspiration, that is, its 
other name is hard worl<, but ability without character has nothing 
that will lasih it to labor, and it becomes lazy and lagard and loses its 
high possibility. Character means a life, not of devices but of ma- 
jesties, it means living, not temporal but eternal, it stands and toils 
on a plane higher than that of mere diplomacy. It works with God, 
together, withi Him in the un/foldment of His purposes and the expres- 
sioin of His hiws,. To which, all of this, Calvin Coolidge is true. He 
has a most serious and profound appreciation of life. To live is for 
him a tremendous and stalwart matter. He has a spiritual estimate 
of law. He says "We do not make laws, we do but discover tliem." 
He seesi law as eternally established) from the foundations of the uni- 
verse. The truths even which we perceive are principles that are 
from everlasting to everlasting, they are the eternal verities of God 
himself. This is a vision splendid of the dignity of life and of the 
eternal djgnity of law, wliich is so wholesome, so appetizing and so 
enjoyable in contrast with the cheap esitimates of life and law so 
common nowadays. Calvin Coolidig& is no politician with sordid de- 
sire, whose eyes are on the ground. He is a statesman, an American, 
and a citizen o.f the universe with his eyes upward and forward. He 
hears the call of the Infinite and seeks to discern His ways. It is, 
after all, the irreproachable and uncompromising character of the 
man which is the secret of his power, and which puts him in that 
place of our conscious reverence like that which we swing around 
the memory of Abraham Lincoln and around a very lonely few of all 
the great souls of history. After all is gaid and done, it is character 
that talks more than anything els(e and without it all voices are 
empty babbles. It is the character of Calvin Coolidge, — his strength 
of soul, his might of manhood, his vision of spirit, which make him 
what he isS, and hold him in our abiding and increasing respect 
and affection. A year ago in addressing the graduates of Amherst 
College, after a masterful discussion of the classics, he came forth 
with this pronouncement "The classic of all classics is the Bible." 
And one may well read between the lines of his own great addresses, 
the impress, the influence and the truth of the Word of God. In the 
heart of Calvin Coolidge is the consciousness of the abiding presence 
and the authority of Him who changes not. And here we have 
statesmanship of high order, statesmanship clean, statesmanship 
strong, statesmanship reliable, statesmanship that will not lie, that 
is not cheap, that will not sell out for a price, eitatesmanship that will 
support and build government, that will enforce and protect the 
law, that will vouchsafe to the people the benefits "of life, liberty 
and the pursuit of happiness." Here we have manhood, splendor of 



intellect, dignity of soul, and full-orbed Americanism. With such 
statesmen as that we are safe, with men of that order in places of 
perferment and responsibility, our nation cannot perish from the 
earth. With men of that quality in high office ours is no futile cry 
"Long live America!" 

And thus I have celebrated our national holiday by speaking of 
a great American, one born on tlie nation''s birthday and one not 
dead, but living, one now in the toil and sweat and purpose of things. 
And thus have I said that patriotism is not mandates written on a 
book, but mandates lived in life. I have said that citizenship is not 
a theory, but day-by-day obedience of the laws of the land. I have 
said that loyalty to one's country is not noisy enthusiasms on the 
Fourth of July, not the froth and frenzy of inordinate excitement, 
but it is consistent and abiding harmony with the principles at the 
heart of Government through the round of the year and the round 
of life itself. And I have said all of these things by telling the 
story of a humble, earnest, honest, toiling, majestic American in 
whom we all are interested and in whom we all believe. It is 
Americanism not on paper but in life that counts, and sublime in 
our appreciation is that man or woman who in high measure em- 
bodies and personifies the fundamental principles of true and ioo% 
Americanism. To be an American is to hold the charter of liberty. 
And it is the passion of our unselfish Americanism to help extend 
that charter of liberty to all the peoples of the earth — the charter 
for free, true, and high manhood and womanhood. 

There are many evils in our country. This fact we must admit. 
Our life is too complex. Our life isi too rapid. It is too nervous, too 
selfish, too artificial, too superficial. We are the victims of pro- 
fiteers. Justice is often perverted. There is much of popular frenzy 
and social lack of ease. We need leaders who will guide us back 
to some of the old fashioned virtues of siimplicity and goodness. We 
need leaders as well who will guide us forward to new and higher 
things. We need to correct evils. We need to build a more stal- 
wart, a more perfect, a more Christian civilization here in our land. 
We must revert to that principle that all men are "created free and 
equal," that they are potentially of one order and heritage, that they 
are to. enjoy the equality of opportunity, that they are to have vouch- 
safed to them the rights "of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happi- 
ness" We must exalt the home, the school, the church, the State. 
We must appreciate the sacredness of life, of each and every life, 
of all of each and every life, the body, the mind, and the soul, and 
encourage the fulfillment of their possibility. We must know that 
citizenship is not only collective, but it is individual, that patriotism 
is not only social but it is personal. It is not a mere matter of ex- 
cited multitudes but a thing to be livedl in the solitudesi of life, in 
the labor, the pleasure, and the daily conduct of life. Americanism 
is not a theory, but a life. To be good Americans we must be good 
men and women. Here in a land of religious liberty, where we can 
"worship God according to the dictatest of our conscience" we must 
not do violence to. that liberty by failing to worship Him altogether. 
In the worship of the Mosit High we shall find our truer and our bet- 
ter selves. We must be loyal to our God, before we can be truly 
loyal to our country, to our fellowmen, and to ourselves. To love 
Godi and to love our neighbors as ourselves is true Christianity, and 
it is true Americanism. It is by lifting up the Cross o.f Christ and by 
living day by day the first and great commandment, that, under God, 
we who are Americans shall be able to make "the Stars and Stripes 
forever the emblem of militant liberty," and bring our joys to all 
mankind. 

—38— 



ARTICLE XI 

CALVIN COOLIDGE— PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED 

STATES, OR FROM A FARM HOUSE TO THE 

WHITE HOUSE 

(Written just after Mr, Harding's body crossed the nation thr<nig-li 
3,000 miles of a people's tribute of love and sorrow.) 



"All quiet along the Patomac." Why? Because silent Calvin 
Coolidge is there. But his very silence is vocal. It will be heard 
from the White House to the sea. For a man to go through so many 
public offices, all under the greedy, criticaJ view of the masses, and 
yet with a record, so untarnished and clean, is a noteworthy human 
achievement. Our enthusiasms may feed andi flame slowly, but more 
than a mere provincial loyalty may cause us to say "Have faith in 
Calvin Coolidge." With more than mere cold accuracy of thought 
processes;, he has in him a spiritual self-hood, which stirs warm and 
vibrant. And it is all a result. The causes lie back in the years. 
It is not the hasty product of mere political cleverness but it is the 
fruit of sincerity. In Lincoln we called it honesty. 

Though classed a conservative, Calvin Coolidige is a creative 
mind. He is delightfully independent, working with that slow care, 
which is, nevertheless, swifter in the distance, and which, when it 
does, is not caled upon to undo. He is a safe adventurer, believes in 
the beaten path, but hewes a new road if it leads to empire. "Pro- 
gresiS always leads along the line of non-conformity" yet no real 
progress is through unbridled rashness. No one can say that Calvin 
Coolidge is rash. He is not upset by clamour nor swept from his 
moorings by applause. No stronger embodiment of unimpassioned 
common-sense ever sat in the nationi's seat of high authority. 

Like Abraham Lincoln, our hero of today is a self-made man, 
where the genius of a dogged pertinacity triumphs over circum- 
stance. Of such stuff all heroes are madd. Bite the dusit, they will 
rise again to fight and toil, till Destiny whose other name is God, 
will yield the triumph. As with every life, so with Calvin Coolidge, 
every moment has been fraught with the meaning of the vears. His 
has been the calm patience of untiring toil. We are led to feel that 
in the trudging of Calvin Coolidge, ever forward and upward, there 
has been a purpose in it all, somewhere and somehow, other than hu- 
man. History has lots to say along this very line. 

These folks lack penetrative vision who speak of Coolidge's ca- 
reer as one of luck. It is one of a boundless but quiet pluck,^ — he 
is/ even quiet in the hour of sadi glory and bows his soul in sorrow at 
the going of his Chief. His career has been one of study, he has 
been! grinding over books, there has been brain-sweat, there has been 
the charm and rugged fascination of thought, there has been the fre- 
quent fatigue of mindi. There haa been the piercing into the dark 
of a problem and through the dark to the light again. It could 
never have been otherwise or he could never have gained that power 
of straight and correct thinking which he hasi today. There are great 
and far causes back of such great results. Nature and life go by law 
— 'we must remember that, whether we deal with ourselves or philos- 
ophize concerning others. Mr. Harding's influence might have 
started tc. wane, and Calvin Coolidge, called of God and made jiossible 
by the strange enthusiasm of the Chicago Convention, brought into 
power. The sanity of such a view, I believe the evidence of the com- 

— :^9— 



ing- years will support. I do not ask under what lucky star was Cal- 
vin Coolidige born. There is nothing spooky or uncanny in his 
career of political advancement, — he has simply made conspicuously 
good in every position he hasi held, always doing the day's work, ever 
inspiring and holding- the confidence of others, seeming to be a liv- 
ing embodiment of the right. He has livedi in leag^ue with the 
truth, and the truth has emancipated him to courageous action. 
Not, under what star of luck was he born, is the question, but on 
what star of loyalty, percision, toil, and truth has he fixed his vision 
through the years. He is a legalist, but he is spiritual. He is as cold 
in person as an ice-berg but he has faith. There, is warmth inside. 

We may measure the man by his words — not their number, but 
their quality. Truth is vast but his words that express it are con- 
densed. The essence of the matter is not lost in the wrappings. 
Like a window-pane truth is presented transparent and clear. Even 
all of his political pronouncements have the rug-gedness of an eter- 
nal import. His thought, like sword-thrusts, goes to the heart of 
things. "The measure of success," he says "is not the quantity of 
merchandise, but the quality of manhood which is produced." Here 
is an estimating-, not of quantities but of qualities, seeing not mere 
mathematics but soul-sltulf and spiritual entity. I read the other day 
the following newspaper report of one of Mr. Coolidge's addresses 
and I felt that the reporter had caught aflame with the fire that 
burned in the soul of Coolidge or he never could have ininterpreted 
the real Coolidge so correctly — "Mr Coolidge laid stress upon the es- 
sential importance of religion and the spiritual factor in the main- 
tenance of this republic and civilization itself. Not in its 
material advancement, not in itsi scientific acliievements, not 
in its armies and naviesi, not in its art and literature was its 
future assured, but in the stability of its morals and its adherence 
to the tried and accepted tenetsi taught by the Chistian 
Church was the hope of civilizatio.n based. Without them, 
he declared, there would be nothing but disintegration and ruin. On 
the fruitsi of the spirit the hopes of mankind in the future years alone 
depend." Tlien went on the report of the address — "The time has 
come" said Mr. Coolidge, "when we may more properly look to the 
people, when natural laws may well be left to supplement artificial 
laws. In complete freedom of action the people sometimes have a 
more effective remedy than! can be supplied by government interfer- 
ence. Individual interference in the long run is a firmer reliance 
than bu^aajucratic supervision. We do not need more g-overnment. 
We dcfJJpTJed more law. We ido need more religion." "And this" 
added the reporter, or editor, "is the man whom fate, or luck, or cir- 
cumstance, call it what you may, has made President of the United 
States foi-" nearly two years to come.*" Personally we are led to feel 
that God, and not blind luck, had something to do with it. No 
Christian pulpit has a clearer or more ringing- message of truth than 
these words of Calvin Coolidge. There is something that engenders 
both calm and pride in having- such a man for President c.f these 
United States. We feel that he is a seer, a prophet, a spiritual as 
well as a political leader, that he is a safe g-uard and a safe guide 
for the nation. Here the word "politician" is again lifted from the 
slime of past associations and we may well afford to trust a politician 
who talks in such terms and who deals intimately with such realities. 
After all, what the people) want in their political leader, more than 
anything esle is integrity. Where they find that they place faith 
and this faith is bound to rise to enthusiasm and to deepen into love. 

—40— 



Grasping politicians, to the contrary, there are no majorities like the 
people. Nothing can defeat Calvin Coolidge a year away for re- 
election, for the people are fastening their grappling faith in that 
man, and there are no sweeping, irresistible majorities like the nia- 
jorities of a believing i)eople. No president that the United 
States has ever had' has got\ more truly down to tlie real 
philisophic and religious basis of life and action, or who has had a 
more spiritual conception of political government. That is why he is 
destined to become one of our greatest of Presidents, otherwise we 
do not read truth as we might read a book. Many people fail be- 
cause they do not grasp the spiritual meaning of things, or if they 
do grasp it, they grasp it decades too late. Life's power goes back 
to origins and to every step of the way. 

There never was a kinder and more lovable man in the Presi- 
dential Chair than Mr. Harding. In this resipect he was equal to 
and comparable with the immortal Lincoln. Mr. Coolidge is, ad- 
mittedly, of a different type. He has a certain severity and seeming 
indifference, but he has a sharp scrutiny and there is in him a keen 
sense of legalistic justice. He has been a diligent student of great 
historic perso.nalities, and we have reason to believe that Abraham 
Lincoln has been his studied ideal, — if so, as for Calvin Coolidge and 
Abraham Lincoln, each is worthy of the other. They have a kinship 
in greatness. They are political seers of royal blood — the royalty of 
democracy, and when we think cf either of them we are led to feel 
like reading one of the majestic chapters of Isaiah. With Calvin 
Coolidge, as with Abraham Lincoln, there is no price big enough to 
buy him — not enough gold in the hills or pearls in the sea. He has 
character, and therefore moral authority, and stands unafraid to the 
four points of the compass. He will be a reconcilor but never a 
compromiser. There is no fear that he will play with the tempta- 
tions or perils of power, nor be swept away by the stelf-flattery of it. 
He is. too. well schooled in the law of self-restraint and of self-direc- 
tion. He thinks first and at length, then speaks last and with de- 
cisive brevity. This is no.t presumption on his part. It is calm and 
correct thinking to the point of decision. 

Perhaps Calvin Coolidge would not be a startling success in the 
Christian ministry. Perhaps he wouldn't be able to meet some of 
its modern light and more frivoulous social demands, to. success- 
fully cater to such as do not want to think orvto receive a moral chal- 
lenge, but who want only to be everlastingly entertained, even in 
the church of God. Moreover, his sermons might be so dry and pon- 
derous, that when he started to preach many would be saying their 
"Now I lay me down to sleep." It is true that as Vice President Mr. 
Coolidge seemed insipid and tasteless, except that some of his 
speeches glowed with prophetic fire. By the nature of his office and 
through his delicate sense of subordination to his chief he seemed 
reduced almost to a non-entity. If pulled unexpectedly into the 
presidency there would need to be a violent arrousement of his entire 
personality, unless in quiet he had been keeping ever alert. The 
ordeal of being thrust into the Presidency is neither making nor 
breaking him, — it is revealing him. As President he is a surpise to 
those who had seen him only as Vice President. They did not know 
that he had the initiative, the cautious skill, the ability, the decis- 
ion and quick percision that he manifests. We feel that the Con- 
stitution will not be spit upon with impunity, and we feel that the 
principle will somehow prevail that there is no right to strike against 
the public health any more than to strike against the public safety. 

—41— 



Calvin Coolidge comes to first principles, — being a humble seeker of 
the truth, he is a learner and a finder of it. He has faith in the 
opinions of others and he also has saving faith in the processes and 
findings of his own mind, and then has the calm power to act on his 
decisions. Coming to the Presidency, we have in him co.ld brain 
hand in hand with spiritual convictions coming to the top of the 
world, and for us there is contentment in it. 

When Calvin Coolidge, aroused from sleep by the trembling 
words "The President is dead" arose, and in the silent watches of the 
night, by the flickering light of an oil lamp took the oath of office, 
administered by his own loved father, that made him President of 
the world's greatest nation, he did not add to the oath of allegiance 
the fervant words "So help me God" for any mere dramatic reason. 
Nor was the first act of his, as President of the United States, going 
out to stand in bowed silence at the side of his mother's grave any 
mere stage effect to be glared at under the flash of the foot-lights. 
The silence of his own heart and the sacred silence of that grave 
talked together in words that the world can never know. The soul 
of that good man and the silence of that good woman, who had 
schooled him in the art of living back in the days of his childhood, 
were talking the matter over in ways that will redound to the bene- 
fit of mankind. There was prayer and consecration in it all, and 
God be thanked, that we have a President taking up the duties of 
his office in the fear of the Almighty and in honor and justice toward 
all mankind. All God-fearing Americans, with that' sense of reli- 
ance upon the Divine which characterized the patriotism of our fore- 
fathers, should pray for Calvin Coolidge that he might be divinely- 
guided. Hard tasks lie out ahead. Mav his arm be strengthened. hi<^ 
mind and spirit quickened. 

Calvin Coolidge has disctjverod that the ciuickest way to a de- 
cision is the thought-road, however round about, v/hich leads to the 
correct decision. In other words he believes with Lincoln that 
nothing is settled until it is settled right. He has trained himself 
to rapid and accurate tliinking, yet he is willing to be slow, very slow, 
slow enough to be right. This caution really means the quickest ar- 
rival at unalterable truth. He believes in brevity, in economy of 
time, and we may also be sure that he will believe in economv in the 
use of the people's money. As to economy, and as toi futile action, 
he told the Massachusetts law-makers on one occasion that sometimes 
the best thing they could do was to meet, call the roll and adiourn. 
He does not believe in useless legislation. He seems opposed, and 
wisi'lv so, to a constant and prodigious manufacture of new laws. 
By his words "We do not need more law. We do need more religi- 
onw'" he merely meant that the letter killeth but the spirit giveth 
life, that we do not need more law so much on the statute books as 
we need it more truly written on thei heart. He seems to fear that 
law making has become a craft, a trade, a business, until we are 
getting more laws than law interpreters can find time to interpret 
or law enforcers can find time to enforce. And it is true. A man 
can hardly eat a meal and shake the salt cellar without first asking 
his neighbor. "Can you tell me the law on this?" Coolidge would 
put a stop to the wholesale manufacture of laws. It is just as if 
he would say, why, you are turning out laws like Ford Automobiles 
and the things rattle and bang at every! corner and they clutter up 
the highways of our modern life. Only Coolidge would be incapable 
of saying the thing so crudely. He would say it with an elegance 
that would make the saying a classic that would live forever. An- 

— 42— 



tagonistic to the wholesale output of useless legislation, he believes 
fundamentally in' law itself, its dignity and spirit, he believes in the 
rigid enforcement of it, the obedience of it, and reverence for it. 

Yes, he believes in economy — I, have said economy in time — also 
he believes in economy in speech. "Do the day's work, and be brief" 
is his motto. Here is both a policy and a program. It means or- 
ganization and achievement. This prinicple is not a mere theory — 
he lives it. He does not over-talk. Some think he does not talk 
enough. But silence has stood him in good stead. It has been both 
one of his best friends and one of his best recommendations. Silence 
has been his passport from one station of responsibility to. another, 
and we doubt not that a reasonable supply of it will be his passport 
into another term as President. We are told that over his fireplace 
at Northampon are the words: 

"A wise old owl sat on an oak, 
The more he saw, the less he spoke. 
The less he spoke, the more he heard. 
Why can't we be like that bird?" 

Mr. Coolidge has found wisdom in this and has come to the crafty 
silence of his Owl-hood. It is a matter of satisfyingf confidence that 
at Washington Mr. Coolidge will not talk too much. With all the 
quiet diginty with which he will grace his office, there will be an 
abundant wealth of deep and clear thinking, there will be conse- 
crated devotion to duty, there will be a constant and honest fidelity 
to country, to humanity, and to God. He will stimulate a new and 
much-needed popular reverence for government in the teaching that 
human government is expressive of Divine Government. The ideal- 
ism of his thought and his view of the eternal meaning ofi law is no 
where better manifest than in his words "We do not make laws. 
We do but discover them.'' Here he has reference to the real laws, 
the actual underlying principles of life. New confidence, new stabil- 
ity, and a higher patriotism of thought, o.f reverence and of work, 
ought to come to our nation under the consecrated lead of Calvin 
Coolidge. We cannot read God out of human history or out of hu- 
man affairs to day. Certainly God has had something to. do witla the 
destinies of this man Calvin Coolidge, and we must believe the for- 
tunes and sacred principles of America are the more secure, with 
this man of humility, of conviction and of courage in the place of 
power. 

To. help sustain Calvin Coolidge is to help sustain America her- 
self. He must have auppni-t. We have slaughtered our Presidents 
by the knives of abuse, we have whittled them down in death by the 
bullets of criticism, we have given them more to do than human 
power had the strength to do and then clubbed them by our attacks 
while they toiled earnestly at their task. The silent body of our 
Martyred Chief, Warren G. Harding, has just traversed the nation, 
speaking every mile of the 3,000 miles the solemn words "My task 
and your critici-^in have laid me in the ground," and the strange 
paradox of it all is that, all the time we criticized, we held him in 
love and lofty admiration. The conscientious are often keenly sen- 
sitive to criticism, and to such the bullets of criticism are as deadly 
as the bullets of the assassin, the motive better, but the result tragic- 
ally the same. We Americans must learn not to kill our Presidents, 
or to crush them in a way that is worse than death, — -and ever, in the 
shadow, that snow-haired and stooping figure of Woodrow Wilson, 
in the horror r),f a living death, haunts the conscience of America. 

—43— 



•Won't the world quit hanging its best friends and its greatest ser- 
vants on a cross? 

Calvin Coolidge, a legalist, silent, undemonstrative, simple in 
ways and desires, sincere in deeds, is close to the soil, close to the 
life; the experience, the habits of the people, — and he is close to the 
Infinite. He is a God-fearing man who believes that the center of all 
law and government is at the Throne of the Eternal. Taking the 
oath of office as President of the United States in the little Vermont 
farm-house in which he was born, his own father, as Notary Public, 
administering, the oath, and going for his consecration to that most 
sacred of altars, the grave of his mother, a scene unprecedented in 
the history of the nation, we shall never know the lift of mind or 
the upheaval of soul that took place there. But we may well believe 
that the grave-side of his mother, who, at the cost of broken health, 
gave him to the world, was the shrine of his dedication, it was where 
memory and desire blended in hallowed thought. We may well be- 
lieve that at this altar his soul made covenant with its God — to be 
faithful, unswerving, and unafraid, and with all, to be humble, for 
the glory of Jehovah and for the betterment of mankind. Such men 
stand four square. They are the conservators of the good. They 
safe-guard the treasures of civilization. They inflame men with a 
passion for high and holy things. Calvin Coolidge is such a man. 
Not even his name listed in Who's Who five years ago, but now his 
name is being written in living letters of faith and love in the minds 
and hearts of mililons. His life is not luck but pluck, not accident 
but faith, not a gamble but a sublime sincerity! Honesty, loyalty, 
diligence, worship — these are his up-to-date biography. We have 
more regard for faith in a man and in expectation of him, than we 
have in polished obituaries. Tell it with faith in him while he lives, 
not only with flowers when he is gone. If any one name shall glitter, 
in American History, more than that of Calvin Coolidge, that name 
is Abraham Lincoln, gleaming as the name of Abraham Lincoln now 
does in sacred isolation. But the name "Calvin Coolidge" stands 
rival, or rather is beginning to claim modest kinship. It is out of 
common clay when touched by the hand of God, that leap the Im- 
mortals. Such is our faith. History is in the making. Destiny will 
talk. The Eternal charts the seas of time. 

Another word must be said. Results point to origins. Were it 
not for the quiet, simple, Christian home of his childhood, where re- 
ligious faith was the guiding spirit, and where God-fearing parents, 
with the firmness and loving consistency of old-fashioned niet}-, 
taught well tlieir children the lessons of life, teaching them to do. 
with care, fidelity, and with calm faith the day's wo.rk and the sim- 
ple tasks of tlie hour, Calvin Coolidge would never have been the 
mind and soul that he is today. Here is the lesson that America 
needs to learn above every other lesson, — namely: the need o.f religi- 
ous devotion and instruction in the home. If the home fails to meet 
its duty in this respect, little need ever be expected of the children 
in that home. America is going to get its truly great men and wo- 
men out of sincerely religious homes. IShe needs, then, to. look well 
to the home. Home is the school and the shrine where life is to 
learn its lessons and to get its faith. With homes of religious spirit 
and teaching, America is secure and her people will have in them 
the elements of power and greatness. After all, it is not far from 
a farm-house to the White House, or from any kind of a home to 
any position of high usefulness in the world, if only that early home 
is filled with the holiness and the greatness of God. 

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